“I didn’t; all the best part of me went too, this thing you see here—” she stopped, and the same shiver as before went over her.
“But you have your husband,” said Milly, seeking about for comfort. A vision of Mr. Preston, stiff, dull, formal, with his wooden features, fronted her confusingly.
“Yes, that’s the worst of it—if I only had not William!”
“Oh, Mrs. Preston!” cried Milly.
“I suppose it is surprising. After having bored each other for so many years, we really ought to be very much attached, don’t you think? Perhaps even you can see how much comfort I get from William. If I were an article of the Rubric, instead of a woman—but of course, that is different.”
“But you must have loved him when you were married,” cried Milly, shocked.
“Did I, dear? I loved something that went by his name, it wasn’t William. There, don’t let us talk of it; I find no fault. He should have been a celibate priest; I agree with him there. He has never really cared for me, or for—the children.” The spasm passed over her face again. “Oh, if I did not have him, if I were not tied to this narrow round which chokes every higher instinct of me, if I could go off somewhere by myself, to California or Egypt, or Cathay—travel, travel, travel, keep going on and on, seeing something new every hour, breathing freer every day, getting out into the great life of the world!” She clenched her hands. “I have given my life, my aspirations, the whole strength of my being, to William, and now I have nothing left—but William.”
“You have four children in heaven,” said Milly softly.
The elder woman broke down into a fit of weeping that seemed to rend her. Milly sat by, appalled at this glimpse of the inner life of two respectable married people. Later, as she was going home, she met Mr. Preston, his tall, thin figure in its clerical garb silhouetted against the bright green of the spring foliage. His pale eyes gazed solemnly at her as he drew near across the fields; she felt that he might be murmuring Credos, or even Aves, quite oblivious of her presence. But he reached the bars in time to let them down for her, and offer her the handshake from which she had been wont to flee, and then stood a moment as if he would have spoken, while she gazed at him furtively. Could any woman put her arms around that stiff neck or kiss those thin, set lips? Oh, poor Mrs. Preston! But he was really speaking.
“I saw you in the distance and I stopped to pick these for you,” he said in his slow, even tone. It was a little bunch of violets that he held out to her.