Catherine pulled herself together, called up her courage. Something must be done.
“Thurso, let us leave my charms for a moment,” she said. “Tell me, have you had any headache to-day? I hope not.”
“Headache! No. I’ve forgotten what headaches are like.”
“Then, why have you been taking that stuff—laudanum, opium, whatever it is? Oh, it’s so dangerous!”
“I—I haven’t. What do you mean?” he said, stumbling over the words.
She caught sight of a small medicine-glass on his washing-stand, and took it up and smelled it.
“Where is the use of saying that?” she asked, holding it out to him.
He got up quickly, ashamed for a moment of having lied to her, but more ashamed of his stupidity in not being more careful; but when she came in he was so uplifted and vivified by the drug that he had been off his guard. But his shame was infinitesimal compared to his anger with her. She had spoiled, smashed up all his happiness by her interference. Instead of that wonderful sense of well-being and complete physical and mental contentment, he felt now only furiously angry with her. What right had she to break in upon him like this, making him lie to her, which he hated, and making his lie instantly detected?
“And where is the use of your interfering like this?” he cried. “You have spoiled it all now: you have robbed me of it, and it was mine! It would serve you right if I took another dose now, straight away, and did not come down. You know nothing at all about it. I was an absolute martyr to that neuralgia up in Scotland, and I began—yes, I did begin—to get into the habit of taking this. But I am breaking myself of it; you didn’t know that. Till this evening I had not taken any for two days, and after that I was not going to take any more for three days, and after that not for four. You seem to think.... I don’t know what you think.”
She felt at that moment more tenderly towards him than she had felt for years. His weakness—his voluble, incoherent weakness—his childish excuses, touched her. There was something almost woundingly pathetic, too, in his graduated resolves, as if a habit could be cured that way. His anger roused no resentment in her, and she spoke appealingly, full of pity.