Kate did not need to read any more. The letter left no doubt that Dick was engaged in an intrigue with a woman who had written some play or opera which he was going to produce, and the envelope out of which she had taken the letter bore the direction: 'Richard Lennox, Esq., Post Restante, Margate.'
'So it was lies all the while at Margate,' she said to herself, walking about the room, stopping now and again to stare at some object which she did not see. 'There was no American, and no Chilpéric, no Trône d'Écosse, no L'Oeil Crevé, no La Belle Poule, no Marguerite de Navarre. Lies, lies! Nothing but lies! He never intended to produce one of them, or that I should play "Fredegonde." Lies! Lies! And the great part in Le Canard à Trois Becs which would establish my reputation in London. Lies! He never intended to produce one of these operas,' she cried. 'He shut me up here in this lodging so that I should be out of the way while he carried on with that What's-her-name.'
Her brain at that instant seemed to catch fire, and snatching up some money from the mantelpiece, she rushed out of the house tumbling over the children as she made her way to the front door without hat or jacket. The sunlight awoke her and she looked round puzzled, and only just escaped being run over by a passing cart. In front of her was a public-house. Drink! She went in and drank till she recovered her reason and began to lose it again.
A 'bottle of gin, please,' she said, and put the money on the counter and returned to her lodging almost mad with jealousy and rage and thirst for revenge. 'No, she wouldn't drink any more, for if she were to drink any more she'd not be able to have it out with Dick, and this time she would have it out with him and no mistake. If he were to kill her it didn't matter; but she would have it out with him.' As she sat by the table waiting hour after hour for him to return, her whole mind was expressed by the words—'I'll have it out with him'—and she didn't weary of repeating them, for it seemed to her that they kept her resolution from dying: what she feared most was that his presence might quell her resolution. To have it out with him as she was minded, she mustn't be drunk, nor yet too sober.
He might bring home a friend with him, but that wouldn't stay her hand. Montgomery too had deceived her. Dick was rehearsing his opera; he had written music for that Mrs. Forest, and this was the end of their friendship.
Many hours went by, but they didn't seem long, passion gave her patience.
At last a sound of footsteps caused her to start to her feet. It was Dick.
'This is going to be an all-night affair,' he said to himself as soon as he crossed the threshold. 'I hope you didn't wait supper for me?' His manner was most conciliatory, and perhaps it was that conciliatory manner that inflamed her.
'Business, I suppose; I know damned well what your business was: I know all about it, you and your woman, Mrs. Forest; the theatre she's taken for you; where you are rehearsing Montgomery's opera. You cannot deny it,' she cried. 'Mrs. Forest is her name,' and reading in his face certain signs of his culpability her anger increased, her teeth were set and her eyes glared.
Dick feared she was going mad, and with an instinctive movement he put out his arms to restrain her.
'Don't touch me! don't touch me!' she screamed, and struck at him with clenched fists, and then feeling that her blows were but puny she went for him like a bird of prey, all her fingers distended.