Religion again! How I hated the word! It stung me into retorting fiercely—
“It is my misfortune, rather, to have married a sentimental hypocrite!”
I had gone too far. Her proud spirit rose against me. Pale and indignant, she tried to rise to her feet. But she had forgotten her sprained ankle. Her face was contracted with sudden torture, and, with a low cry of pain, she fainted away upon the floor.
December 23.—In two more days the Christmas bells will ring, with their merry tidings of peace, good will, and plum-pudding to all the world. Well, mine is likely to be a cheerful Christmas Day. The snow is still on the ground, and more is falling; and outside the Manor, as I write, the dreariest of dreary winds is wailing. Here, inside, there is even greater gloom. A cheerless hearth, a husband and wife estranged. Bah! the old story.
Things have come to a crisis at last between us. I know now that I must either strike a cruel blow, or lose my wife for ever. Any mere armistice is impossible. Either I must assault my enemy’s camp, get him by the throat, and cover him with punishment and confusion; or haul down my matrimonial flag, capitulate, and let the Church and the devil come in to take possession.
CHAPTER XXXIV. BAITING A MOUSE-TRAP (FROM THE NOTEBOOK).
Let me write down, as calmly as I can, exactly what has taken place.
Yesterday, after that little scene, I carried my swooning-wife up to her room, placed her on the bed, and sent her maid to attend to her. Then I walked off to my den, to have my dark hour alone; for I was thoroughly miserable. So far, I felt, I had been beaten with my own weapons. Ellen was going to pose as a Christian martyr, and I had committed the indiscretion of showing the full extent of my jealousy. It would have been far better, on the whole, if, instead of storming and grumbling, I had quietly kicked the clergyman out of my house; but then, I could hardly deal in that way with a man who had simply, on the face of it, performed an act of common civility. The time for kicking had gone past; I had stupidly let it slip. If, when I caught him in the act of trying to embrace my Ellen, and of addressing her softly by her Christian name, I had calmly and decisively thrashed him, he could hardly have accused me of impoliteness; nor would he have been able, without exposing his own fatuity, to noise the affair about.