She did not hear him. Her anger of a moment since gave way to a paroxysm of pain.
“Oh, merciful God,” she moaned, “how I have been deceived! Oh, to think that he—my—my husband—Oh, it is too much! It is more than I can bear.”
She broke down in a torrent of tears and sobs.
An impulse carried him to her side. He put his arm around her waist, drew her to him, bent over her, stammered out broken syllables of love, comfort, entreaty.
His touch rekindled her wrath, and endowed her frame with preternatural strength. She repulsed him—flung him away from her, over against the opposite wall, with as little effort as if he had been a stick in her path. This fragile woman, towering above this stalwart man, her cheeks now burning scarlet, her limbs quivering with strong emotion, cried, “How dare you touch me? How dare you speak to me? How dare you insult me with your presence? Is it not enough what you have done, without forcing me to remain in the same room with you? Are you not content to have consorted with Benjamin Peixada—to have listened to the story of your wife’s life from that man’s lips—without coming here to confront me with it—to compel me to defend myself against his accusations. Wasn’t it enough to put that advertisement in the paper? Haven’t you sufficiently punished me by decoying me to this place, as you have done? What more do you want? What new humiliation? Though you hate me, now that you know who I am and what I haye done—you, who talked of loving me in spite of every thing—can you not be merciful, and leave me alone? Go—out of my sight—or, at least, stand aside and let me go.”
Her words were followed by a prolonged, convulsive shudder.
Exerting his utmost self-control, dazed and bewildered as he was, he began, “Ruth, will you not give me a chance to speak? Will you not listen to me? Can’t you see that this is some—some frightful error into which we have fallen—which we can only right by speaking? You are doing me a great wrong, Ruth. You are wronging yourself. I beg of you, subdue your anger—oh, for God’s sake, don’t look at me like that. Try to be calm, Ruth, and let us talk together. Let me explain to you. Explain to me, for I am as hopelessly in the dark as you can be. Let us have some understanding.”
His plea passed totally without effect: I suppose, because his wife was a woman. The tumult and the violence of the shock she had sustained had shattered her good sense. Her perceptive faculties were benumbed. Her entire vitality was absorbed by her pain and her indignation. I doubt whether she had heard what he said. But she caught at the last word, at any rate.
“Understanding? What is there to understand? I understand—I understand quite enough. I understand that you have sought information about me from Benjamin Peixada. I understand that it was you who got me here by false pretenses—by that advertisement. I understand that you—you think I am—that you believe what Benjamin Peixada has told you—and that—that the love you protested so much about, has all—all died away—and you—you shudder to think that I am your wife. Well, you may understand this, that I too shudder. I shudder to think that you are my husband—to think that you could have done this behind my back—that—that you—even when you were pretending to love me most, and telling me that you did not care about my secret—even then, you were fraternizing with Benjamin Peixada! You may understand that, however base you may believe me to be, I believe you to be baser still. Oh, if you would only go away, and never, never intrude yourself upon my sight again!”
Completely undone, he could only press his hands to his temples, and murmur, “Oh my God, my God!”