Unequal always to resolve her moods, he sustained a monologue from the fireplace on the trifles of the hour, until her persistent silence compelled him to ask its cause.
She replied listlessly, after some pressing, that it must be of no importance since he could ignore it.
She had merely been deceived in him, that was all: a common thing with a woman. He had proved himself to be just a man, like every other; and not the man of men she had supposed him.
It had amused him, no doubt, to win her love; now, it seemed, he was tired of it.
He had spoilt her life, he had destroyed her faith; but such things, of course, weren't worth mentioning: the great matter was, naturally, that a man should not be bored.
Now, she supposed, they might as well end the farce between them, so that he could amuse himself elsewhere. All she had lived for was over for ever, and she did not care what became of her.
She poured out the indictment to his bewildered ears in the level tones of utter apathy; but when it was done she flung herself violently across the head of the lounge in a tempest of passionate tears.
Terence, despairing of any further fitness or sanity in the affair, resigned himself to the situation with a sigh, and knelt beside her for an hour, until she appeared to draw from his caresses a renewed confidence in life.
He left her, sufficiently depressed himself, and expecting anything but a letter which reached him on the morrow by the earliest post.
It must have been written very shortly after his departure, which she had done her utmost to delay, yet it proclaimed her as too shamed by what had happened ever to meet him again, unless he felt himself strong enough to prevent such scenes in the future.