“Oh, Oliver! if I had had my way—I had designed her for you.”
“For me!”
Oliver bent his head and looked hard into the fire, where strange forms of light were dancing—dancing and disappearing.
Then Mr. Menaida said, between his whiffs: “Surely a change of wind, Oliver. A little while ago, and she was not to be considered; justice above all, and Judith sacrificed, if need be—now it is Judith above all.”
“Yes,” musingly, “above all.”
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A FIRST LIE.
As a faithful, as a loving wife almost, did Judith attend to Coppinger for the day or two before he was himself again. He had been bruised, that was all. The waves had driven him against the boat, and he had been struck by an oar; but the very fact that he was driven against the boat had proved his salvation, for he was drawn on board, and his own men carried him swiftly to the bank, and, finding him unable to walk, conveyed him home. On reaching home a worse blow than that of the oar had struck him, and struck him on the heart, and it was dealt him by his wife. She bade him put away from him for ever the expectation, the hope, of her becoming his in more than name.
Pain and disappointment made him irritable. He broke out into angry complaint, and Judith had much to endure. She did not answer him. She had told him her purpose, and she would neither be bullied nor cajoled to alter it.
Judith had much time to herself; she wandered through the rooms of Pentyre during the day without encountering anyone, and then strolled on the cliffs; wherever she went she carried her trouble with her, gnawing at her heart. There was no deliverance for her, and she did not turn her mind in that direction. She would remain what she was—Coppinger’s half-wife, a wife without a wedding-ring, united to him by a most dubiously legal ceremony. She bore his name, she was content to do that; she must bear with his love turned to fury by disappointment. She would do that till it died away before her firm and unchangeable opposition.