“It is a frightfully monotonous life we lead anyhow,” said he, as if she, Lily, were responsible for it.

“Suppose we go away a week somewhere next month,” said Lily.

“Well, I’ll think of it,” said he, striding along by her side.  Even that suggestion, which was entirely reasonable, angered him, and he felt furious and ashamed of himself for being so angered.

Lily was constantly making him ashamed of himself for not being a god and for feeling unreasonable anger when she did nothing to provoke it.  Once in a while a man likes to have a reasonable cause for resentment in order to prove himself in the right.

“Well, I am ready to go whenever you wish to do so, dear,” said Lily.  “My wardrobe is in order.”

“Well, we’ll see,” George grunted again, as he and Lily retraced their steps.

They sat down again in the sitting-room, and Lily took up her embroidery, and he read a murder case in his paper.

Meanwhile, Maria, after putting out her lamp, was lying awake in bed thinking that Evelyn would come in and make some confidence to her, but she did not come.  Maria felt horribly uneasy.  She could not understand her sister’s sudden change of mood, and yet she did not for a moment doubt Wollaston.  She said to herself that as far as she was concerned she would brave the publicity if Wollaston loved Evelyn, but she recalled as exactly as if she had committed them to heart what Evelyn had said with regard to divorce and the horror which she had expressed of a divorced man or woman remarrying.  Then she further considered how much worse it would be if the divorced man married her own sister.  That course seemed to her impossible.  She imagined the horrible details, the surmises, the newspaper articles, and she said to herself that even if she herself were willing to face the ordeal it would be still more of an ordeal for Wollaston and Evelyn.  She said to herself that it was impossible; then she also said to herself, with no bitterness, but with an acquiescence in the logic of it, that it would be much better for them all if she, Maria, should die.

Chapter XXXVI

Evelyn’s return of appetite and spirits endured only a few days.  Then she seemed worse than she had been before.  In fact, Wollaston, thinking that he had done wrong in yielding for only a second to his impulse of tender protection and admiration for the young girl, went too far in the opposite direction.  In order to make amends to Maria, himself, and Evelyn, he was actually rude, almost brutal.  He scarcely spoke to Evelyn.  On one occasion he even reprimanded her severely in a class for a slight mistake.  Evelyn turned pale, and gave him a glance like that of some pretty, little, harmless animal which has nothing except love and devotion in its heart, and whose very mistakes are those of love and over-anxiety to please.  Wollaston was struck to the heart by the look, but he did not relax one muscle of his stern face.