“But,” she continued firmly, “my feelings, my determination, have been growing, growing,” she repeated the word hopelessly, seeing how difficult it was to make her conduct seem rational, not mere caprice. “And it may be for only a few months. I want to get away by myself.”
Wilbur would not abandon the Erard motive.
“I didn’t suppose you meant to run away with him, but he’s stirred you up; got you all out of gear, with his twaddle and sentiment.”
“Perhaps he has hastened matters,” Mrs. Wilbur admitted, anxious to do justice to any reasonable arguments. “But that is immaterial really. He merely made me think faster—although we never referred to my married life.”
“Do you pretend to justify your conduct?” Wilbur fumed. He was plainly embarrassed by the suddenness of this great question.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Wilbur replied, with a touch of sarcasm, “all the justification will be on your side. There’s no excuse for me, since you have not threatened my life nor committed adultery. You will have universal sympathy.”
They thought silently for a few minutes. Then she added,—“And I should want you to have this house and all the money I had when we were married—in any event.”
“Have you any objections to me?” Wilbur asked roughly.
And thus they continued to discuss the matter in the still room of the still house that Mrs. Wilbur had likened to a tomb. The man’s sense of wanton, unprovoked injury increased as each bend of the argument revealed itself. He was so irreproachably right! a truth which his wife did not attempt to deny.
“But why do you want to retain a despicable woman?” she asked coldly, at last.