Despised? His feeling came nearer to loathing than to contempt as he looked at her. Her very beauty sickened him—the outer covering which had won his fancy. He hated himself for ever having loved her.
She could not see that it was the act itself, not the consequences of it, which he so condemned. So small was her nature that she was unable even to comprehend her transgression. He could not make her understand the horror with which he must regard such a breach of trust.
"There was no great harm done?" was her cry.
"Harm!" he said, brokenly. "There is murder done. You have killed my faith, Elsa, for ever more."
"It is very rude and unkind to say that you will never tell me anything again, just because I let out this one thing. And I only told one person. I never so much as mentioned it to anyone else. I might have published it all over London, to hear you talk!"
It was impossible to answer a speech like this. She had only betrayed him to one person! She had not so much as mentioned it to anyone else! And this was his wife, his ideal!
Claud Cranmer had said,
"If you wish to preserve your ideal, you must not marry her."
He sank into a chair, covered his face, and groaned.
"Come, Leon, don't behave like that—you are the most unreasonable person I ever met!" cried Elsa. "Go away, please, to your dressing-room, and leave me alone. I want to go to bed. You have made me cry so that my eyes are scarlet, and my head feels like lead. I think you are extremely unkind; when I have told you I am very sorry, and begged you pardon. I don't see what more I can do."