She turned slowly towards him, and rose to her feet. Then came words—words that cut and chilled as if they were made of sharp steel that had been sheathed in a scabbard of ice.
"You have been very imprudent and very weak. You are not fit to have the management of your own affairs."
She said no more. She was intensely angry at her husband, but in her strongest irritation she never said any thing not justified by the circumstances—never put herself in the wrong by violence or exaggeration. She had a great contempt for female volubility and scolding; and the effect of her tongue, when she used it, was to the effect of a scold's rattle what the piercing of a rapier is to the cracking of a whip.
John Stanburne dreaded the severity of his wife's judgment more than he would have dreaded the fury of an unreasonable woman. He had not a word to offer in reply. He felt that it was literally and accurately true that he had been "very imprudent and very weak, and was not fit to have the management of his own affairs."
He covered his face with both hands in an agony of self-accusation, and remained so for several minutes. Then he cried out passionately, "Helena, dear Helena!" and again, "Helena! Helena!"
There was no answer. He lifted up his eyes. The place she had occupied was vacant. She had noiselessly departed from his side.