V
Suspicions? Nay, convictions! Beliefs. Certainties!
They were certainties, now! Certainties to Clarke's mind, at least. For in a month after this episode he had become a silent monomaniac on the subject of the brass-bound box. He felt shame no longer. She was guilty. Of just what, he did not know. But guilty. Guilty as Hell itself, he told himself, rhetorically, in one of the dumb rages which now became so frequent with him.
Guilty—guilty—guilty—the clock on the mantelpiece ticked off many dragging hours of intolerable minutes to that tune, while Clarke lay awake and listened. Guilty—guilty—guilty—repeat any word often enough, and it will hypnotize you. Guilty—guilty—guilty—so he and the clock would talk to each other, back and forth, the whole night through. If any suggestions of his former, more normal habits of thought came to him now it was they that were laughed out of court; it was they that were flung away and scorned as traitors.
She was guilty. But he would be crafty! He would be cunning. He would make no mistake. He would allow her no subterfuge. He would give her no chance to snare him back into a condition of half belief. There should be no juggling explanations. They were clever as the devil, women were! But this one should have no chance to fool him again. She had fooled him too long already.
And she kept trying to fool him. Shortly after his outburst over the furs, she began again a series of timid advances which would have struck him as pathetic had he not known that her whole nature was corroded and corrupted with deceit, with abominable deceit. She was trying to make him believe that she did not know why he was angry and estranged, was she? He would show her! He hated her now, with that restless, burning intensity of hatred known only to him who has injured another. A hatred that consumed his own vitality, and made him sick in soul and body. The little sleep he got was passed in uneasy dreams of his revenge; and his waking hours were devoted to plots and plans of the form which it should take. Oh, but she had been cunning to fool him for so long; but she should see! She should see! When the time for action came, she should see!