ONE:She had seen very little of him or of Rose since their[Pg 322] marriage. Rose and she had never been friends, and Reuben she knew was shy of her. He had been angry with her too, because she had not carried her aching heart on her sleeve. Outwardly she had worn no badge of sorrowshe was just as quick, just as combative, just as vivaciously intellectual as she had always been. Though she knew that she had lost him through these very characteristics, with which she had also attracted him, she made no effort to force herself into a different mould. She refused to regret anything, to be ashamed of anything, to change anything. If he came back he should find the same woman as he had left.
FORE:"This comes," said Tyler, enraged at such sudden disorder, "of letting folks taste of what they're not used to; but let them tipple on. By St. Nicholas! they may: I will wait for no man;" and snatching the banner of St. George from its half-stupified bearer, and waving it in the air, he applied a small bugle to his lips, and at the blast, all whose reason was not entirely lost in their thirst, followed the smith from the scene of inebriety.She was no longer merely dissatisfied. In her heart she passionately rebelled. She hated herself, and her condition, for now she hated Reuben. The vague hostility she had felt towards him during Fanny's short[Pg 100] life had given place to a definite hatred. She looked upon Reuben as the murderer of her child, and she hated him. During the first days of her grief he had been so kind to her that she had grown dependent on him and hatred was delayed, but now dependence and dazed gratitude had passed away, and in their place was a sick, heavy loathing for the man whose neglect and indifference she believed had killed her child. She could not endure the thought of giving him another. Sometimes she thought she would like to kill herself, but she was too weak a soul for anything desperate.
FORE:
