‘The doctor? Why?’
‘You don’t seem up to the mark,’ he replied, avoiding her look.
Adela kept silence.
‘You were well enough in London, I suppose?’
‘I am never very strong.’
‘I think you might be a bit more cheerful.’
‘I will try to be.’
This submission always aggravated his disease—by what other name to call it? He would have had her resist him, that he might know the pleasure of crushing her will.
He walked about the room, then suddenly:
‘What is that man Eldon doing?’