force and resolved to bring her to his feet, if need be by outrage.  Even his accent deteriorated as he flung out his passionate words; he spoke like any London mechanic, with defect and excess of aspirates, with neglect of g’s at the end of words, and so on.  Adela could not bear it; she moved to the door.  But he caught her and thrust her back; it was all but a blow.  Her face half recalled him to his senses.

‘Where are you going?’ he stammered.

‘Anywhere, anywhere, away from this house and from you!’ Adela replied.  Effort to command herself was vain; his heavy hand had completed the effect of his language, and she, too, spoke as nature impelled her.  ‘Let me pass!  I would rather die than remain here!’

‘All the same, you’ll stay where you are!’

’Yes, your strength is greater than mine.  You can hold me by force.  But you have insulted me beyond forgiveness, and we are as much strangers as if we had never met.  You have broken every bond that bound me to you.  You can make me your prisoner, but like a prisoner my one thought will be of escape.  I will touch no food whilst I remain here.  I have no duties to you, and you no claim upon me!’

‘All the same, you stay!’

Before her sobbing vehemence he had grown calm.  These words were so unimaginable on her lips that he could make no reply save stubborn repetition of his refusal.  And having uttered that he went from the room, changing the key to the outside and locking her in.  Fear lest he might be unable to withhold himself from laying hands upon her was the cause of his retreat.  The lust of cruelty was boiling in him, as once or twice before.  Her beauty in revolt made a savage of him.  He went into the bedroom and there waited.

Adela sat alone, sobbing still, but tearless.  Her high-spirited nature once thoroughly aroused, it was some time before she could reason on what had come to pass.  The possibility of such an end to her miseries had never presented itself even in her darkest hours; endurance was all she could ever look forward to.  As her blood fell into calmer flow she found it hard to believe that she had not dreamt this scene of agony.  She looked about the room.  There on the table were the vegetables she had been preparing; her hands bore the traces of the work she had done this morning.  It seemed as though she had only to rise and go on with her duties as usual.

Her arm was painful, just below the shoulder.  Yes, that was where he had seized her with his hard hand to push her away from the door.

What had she said in her distraction?  She had broken away from him, and repudiated her wifehood.  Was it not well done?  If he believed her unfaithful to him—­