A week later, after a pleasant morning in the Tea House with Honora and Father O’Donovan, she left it to go to the library. As she turned the corner of the house she saw Beverly standing close to one of the windows.

“What are you doing there?” she asked in surprise.

His brows were lowered and his skin looked black, as it always did when his angry passions were risen.

“I’ve been watching you and that priest,” he said savagely, following her as she retreated hastily out of earshot of the people in the Tea House. “I saw you exchanging glances with him! Now I know why you want to know so much about poisons—”

“Are you insane?” she cried. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“No, I’m not insane—by God! You’re in love with that priest, and I know it. But I’m on the watch—”

“Oh,—you—you—” stammered Patience. She could not speak. Her face was crimson with anger and disgust. In her husband’s eyes she was an image of guilt. He burst into a sneering laugh.

“You think I’m a fool, I suppose, because I don’t know anything about books. But a woman said once that I had the instincts of the devil, and I’ve no idea of—”

Patience found her tongue. “You poor fool,” she said. “It was ridiculous of me to pay any attention whatever to you; but I am not used to being insulted, even by you. And remember that I am not used to any display of imagination in you. As for love—” the scorn with which she uttered the word made even him wince—“do not worry. You have made me loathe the thing. I could not fall in love with a god. Don’t have the least fear that I shall be unfaithful to you. I couldn’t!”

She walked away, leaving Beverly trembling and speechless. When she reached her room she locked the doors and sobbed wildly.

“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” she thought. “I can’t stand it any longer. I believe I really would kill him if I stayed. I feel as if my nature were in ruins. I hate myself! I loathe myself! I’ll leave this very day!”

But she had said the same thing many times. Why does a woman hesitate long before she leaves the man who has made life shocking to her? Indolence, abhorrence of scandal, shame to confess that she has made a failure of her life, above all, lack of private fortune and the uncertainty of self-support. For whatever the so-called advanced woman may preach, woman has in her the instinct of dependence on man, transmitted through the ages, and a sexual horror of the arena. Patience let the days slip by, hoping, as women will, that the problem would solve itself, that Beverly Peele would die, or become indifferent, or that she would drift naturally into some other sphere.