But before going off to her solitary meal, Mrs. Maule went over to that portion of the library where were kept several rows of old law books that had belonged to Dick Wantele's father. She marked the place where stood a solid volume inscribed, "A Digest of the Marriage Laws of England."
When she had a quiet hour to spare, and when no one was likely to see her engaged on the task, she would take that book down, and study it carefully: it doubtless contained information as to several matters of which she was as yet ignorant, and which it now behoved her to know.
CHAPTER XV
"... that supreme disintegrant, the Tyranny of Love...."
The Small Farm had become dear to Jane during the long miserable days she had lived through in the last fortnight. She had gone there whenever she wanted to escape from the intolerable pain of seeing Lingard's absorption in Athena Maule.
Each of the familiar rooms of Rede Place now held for her some bitter, some humiliating association. She never took refuge in her own room upstairs without remembering the long, intimate talk with Athena the evening of her arrival when she had been compelled to reveal more of her inner self than she had ever done in response to the other woman's curiously insistent, eager questioning.
Yes, no doubt Athena was right. Hew Lingard probably regarded a suitable marriage as a necessity of his career. She, Jane, had misunderstood him from the very first, proving herself, so she told herself with shamed anguish, a romantic fool.
In the region of the emotions there are certain secret ordeals which must be faced in solitude. Hew Lingard had taught Jane Oglander what love between a man and woman can come to mean. She had been ready not only to give all—but to receive all. This being so, she could not bring herself to endure the marriage of convenience she now believed to be all he sought of her.