Her radiant charm seemed blotted out in this moment. She was like a woman blanched with some acute physical suffering.
This blow had fallen so suddenly, so unexpectedly. She had always known that she was an object of dislike, even of hatred, to her husband's people, that her claim upon them was recognized grudgingly; but she had quickly taught herself to think about them as little as possible. Her dependence only angered her when it had seemed to demand something of her. Even now it was not the hurt to herself that sent the blood running like ice in her veins; it was this stern revelation of authority, this demand for her children and the knowledge that, placed as she was, defiance to that authority was out of the question.
She put out her hand and steadied herself by the toilette-table; but she trembled and swayed as she stood, and once her eyes turned to the door in a hunted way, as though she could fashion out of the shadows on the landing the figure of the stern old man, who denounced her in words she dared not repeat to herself, who claimed from her the dearest possession life held for her.
The silent emptiness of the room came upon her all at once as the clock on the mantelpiece chimed three. Four hours of solitude stretched before her. Four hours before she could expect Dennis to knock at her door! Four hours of heart degradation and anguish, and deadly sickening fear! She put up one cold hand and pushed her hair back from her brow.
It seemed to her as if already she were alone; already she had been robbed of those little lives that made everything sweet, even the darkest hour.
"I am frightened," she said to herself, "I am frightened! frightened!... What shall I do?"
She began to pace the room, averting her eyes from the letter that lay on the floor. Once she said with her pale lips—
"Violet has done this!"
Another time she almost cried aloud as if with a sudden pain. Then all at once she stood still. Her expression changed. Her face flamed with colour, and she commenced with cold, feeble fingers to get out of her beautiful gown.
A feverish intention born of that sudden thought began to run like wildfire in her veins. She tore at the hooks, she had no thought for the delicacy of the lace, or the fragility of the material. She almost spurned the gown with her foot as it slipped from her, and she veritably threw aside the jewelry she had worn.