“I strive, my lord, not to trouble you.”
“Madam, you are hardly successful.”
“Forgive me,” she said, very white again. “It is not of my doing that I am your son’s wife.”
The Viscount shrugged his shoulders. “I am not responsible for my son’s domestic affairs—”
She turned and faced him.
“Your son is your son,” she said bitterly, “and what you made him. Between you, you have goaded me into something near craziness—but you shall not dare to judge me—you who know what your son is—without pity, or charity, or any tenderness—violent beyond reason—mad!”
The Viscount looked at her straightly and smiled, and at his smile she gave him a wild look and turned hastily, as if frightened, from the room.
As the door closed behind her she shuddered, then began slowly ascending the great stairs.
So lonely, so utterly lonely! The vast house was certainly haunted; she continually glanced over her shoulder at the ghosts catching her skirts.
So lonely, so intolerably lonely! the dark pictures on the walls looked ominous and threatening; heavy shadows lurked in every corner; she began to hurry like a guilty thing, starting before every open door with a frightened glance into the empty room beyond. She came to the very top of the house; the low attics under the roof.