Nevertheless, she was somewhat soothed, and began to compress the mass of imaginary wrongs into the one little wrong which had originated it all.
“What made you take a liking to that miserable house? I hate small rooms—I cannot breathe in them—I have never been used to a little house. Why must I now? I am not going to be extravagant—nobody could be if they tried, in a poor place like Kingcombe. Since you will insist on our living there, and will carry out your cruel pride of independence”—
“Cruel—oh, Agatha!” He absolutely groaned.
“Wishing no extravagance, I do wish for comfort—perhaps some little elegance—as I have had all my life.”
“You shall have it still, Agatha,” her husband muttered. “I will coin my heart's blood into gold but you shall have it.”
“Now you are talking barbarously! Or else—how very very wrong am I! What can be the reason that we torture each other so?”
“Fate!” he cried, pacing wildly up and down. “Fate! that has netted us both to our own misery—nay, worse—to make us the misery of one another. Yet how could I know? You seemed a young simple girl, free to love—I felt sure I could make you love me. Poor dupe that I was! Oh, why did I ever see you, Agatha Bowen?”
He snatched his wife on his knee, and kissed her repeatedly—madly—just as he had done on the morning of their wedding-day; never since! Then he let her go—almost with coldness.
“There—I will not vex you. I must not be foolish any more.”
Foolish! He thought it foolish to show that he loved her! Without replying, Agatha sat down on the bench where her husband placed her. He might say what he liked: she was very patient now.