"I noticed her one day last week in passing. At least, I took it to be her."
Violet left the point there.
The electric light blazed down upon them; it had no shade; not a single light in the house had a shade. It showed harshly, realistically, Violet half leaning against the foot of the bed, and Dr. Raste, upright as when in uniform he used to give orders in Palestine, on the rag hearthrug. Violet's baffled energy raged within her. She had at hand all the materials for tranquil happiness—affection, money, temperament, sagacity, an agreeable occupation—and they were stultified by the mysterious, morbid, absurd, inexcusable and triumphant volition of her loving husband. Instead of happiness she felt doom—doom closing in on her, on him, on the sentient house.
"My husband is a miser. I've encouraged him for the sake of peace. And so now you know, doctor!"
An astounding confession to a stranger, a man to whom she had scarcely spoken before! But it relieved her. She made it with gusto, with passion. She had begun candour with Elsie in the morning; she was growing used to it. The domestic atmosphere itself had changed within six hours. That which had been tacitly denied for months was now admitted openly. Truth had burst out. A few minutes earlier—vain chatter about hospitals, trifling and vain commercial transactions, make-believes, incredible futilities, ghastly nothings! And now, the dreadful reality exposed! And at that very moment Henry in his office, to maintain to himself the frightful pretence, was squandering the remains of his vitality in the intolerably petty details of business.
"Well," said Dr. Raste primly—the first law of his actions was self-preservation—"there isn't a great deal to be done until you can persuade him to have professional advice.... And you? What is it with you? You don't look much better than your husband."
"Oh, doctor!" Violet cried, suddenly plaintive. "I don't know. You must examine me. Perhaps I ought to have come to you before."
At this point the light went out and they were in darkness.
"Oh, dear!"—a sort of despair in Violet's voice now "I knew that lamp would be going soon." The fact was that the lamps in the house generally had begun to go. All of them had passed their allotted span of a thousand burning hours. Two in the shop had failed. Henry possessed no reserve of lamps, and he would not buy, and Violet had not yet wound herself up to the resolve of buying in defiance of him. Once a fuse had melted. For two days they had managed mainly with candles. Violet, irritated, went forth secretly to buy fuse wire. She returned, and with a half-playful, half-resentful gesture threw the wire almost in his face; but it had happened that during her absence he had inserted a new fuse made from a double thickness of soda-water-bottle wire which he had picked up from somewhere. His reproaches, though unspoken, were hard for her to bear.
The doctor promptly struck a match, and Violet lit the candle on the night-table.