“Have you no love for me? My darling! My dear, beautiful wife! Have you begun to hate me?”
Tears came to her eyes. She implored him to rise and command himself.
“I was so violent, so brutal with you. I spoke without thinking—”
“But why should you speak like that? Why are you so unreasonable? If you forbid me to do simple things, with not the least harm in them, you can’t expect me to take it like a child. I shall resist; I can’t help it.”
He had risen and was crushing her in his arms, his hot breath on her neck, when he began to whisper,—
“I want to keep you all to myself. I don’t like these people—they think so differently—they put such hateful ideas into your mind—they are not the right kind of friends for you—”
“You misunderstand them, and you don’t in the least understand me. Oh, you hurt me, Edmund!”
He released her body, and took her head between his hands.
“I had rather you were dead than that you should cease to love me! You shall go to see her; I won’t say a word against it. But, Monica, be faithful, be faithful to me!”
“Faithful to you?” she echoed in astonishment. “What have I said or done to put you in such a state? Because I wish to make a few friends as all women do—”