I can't read his writing, and it
seems interminable. Would you mind?"
A sigh of relief broke from her. A weight slipped away from her heart and
brain. It was as though one in armour awaited the impact of a heavy,
cruel, overwhelming foe, who suddenly disappeared, and the armour fell
from the shoulders, and breath came easily once again.
"Would you mind?" he repeated drily, as he folded up the letter slowly.
He handed it back to her, the note of sarcasm in his voice pricking her
like the point of a dagger. She felt angered with herself that he could
rouse her temper by such small mean irony. She had a sense of bitter
disappointment in him--or was it a deep hurt?--that she had not made him
love her, truly love her. If he had only meant the love that he swore
before they had married! Why had he deceived her? It had all been in his
hands, her fate and future; but almost before the bridal flowers had
faded, she had come to know two bitter things: that he had married with a
sordid mind; that he was incapable of the love which transmutes the
half-comprehending, half-developed affection of the maid into the
absorbing, understanding, beautiful passion of the woman.
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