Her soul revolted, she wrote, at what he had done. He had thrown her away like stale water. His selfishness had made her life unbearable. Her pride, her capacity for caring, her whole womanhood had been hurt and crushed to death.
She went about feeling there was no meaning any more in anything. He had hardened and embittered her nature to a terrible degree.
He had hurt her so unendurably that it didn't seem to matter how she hurt others.
Love and truth and honour had become a farce, and loyalty was an unnecessary scruple.
She ended by saying she did not know how long she could go on bearing it in silence. The only fair thing seemed to be to tell Miss Anstruther everything that had happened, and let her judge between them.
Despite the sense of his integrity, and a dreary memory of the months devoted to her whims, Terence almost felt himself to be, as he read her impeachment, the unspeakable brute that she described.
He even tried to excuse her horrid and unexpected forms of speech; the clamour, the invective, the dismal absence of reserve. If she had overleapt the bounds of decency he had given her the impetus, and to be startled by such an exhibition only argued his inexperience.
Yet even his generosity could not acquit her. He remembered her repeated wail, "Tell me I haven't spoilt your life!"—a cry which no ardour of his assurance seemed able to satisfy. Well, now she had the only proof that could appease her conscience, and this was the result. He showed her that his life was still whole, and she itched to break it beyond repair.
His resentment quickened. Surely it was more than should be asked of a man's benevolence to sacrifice his life to no purpose for a woman's mistake.
He wrote urgently, and as he thought in reason; but the letter read to her as a wrathful menace. He had explained that in trying to hurt others she might hurt herself the more, since to alienate Miss Anstruther would be to make a lifelong enemy of himself.