“Granted!—but in which or what sort of other world? This can’t be hell!”
“It must: there’s marriage in it! You and I are damned in each other.”
“Then I’m not like Othello, damned in a fair wife!—Oh, I remember my Shakspeare, madam!”
She picked up a broken branch that had fallen into a bush, and steadying herself with it, walked away, tossing her little skull.
“Give that stick to me,” cried her late husband; “I want it more than you.”
She returned him no answer.
“You mean to make me beg for it?”
“Not at all, my lord. I mean to keep it,” she replied, continuing her slow departure.
“Give it me at once; I mean to have it! I require it.”
“Unfortunately, I think I require it myself!” returned the lady, walking a little quicker, with a sharper cracking of her joints and clinking of her bones.