"Yes, probably. Why?"
"I was thinking, if you wouldn't mind, I would have a bed made up for you in the spare room. I only sleep in snatches when you are out and I am expecting you. Every sound rouses me. I think it is the door opening. And then when you do come it disturbs me, and I do not sleep again. If you don't mind I should prefer to be alone—on your late nights—your late festive nights."
Dr. Maclure stood looking gloomily into the fireplace.
"Have I annoyed you, Dan?" Beth asked at last.
He walked to the door, stood a moment with his back to her, then turned and looked at her. "Annoyed is not the word," he said. "You have wounded me deeply."
He opened the door as he spoke, and went out. When he had gone Beth sat and suffered. She could not bear to hurt him, she was not yet sufficiently brutalised for that; so she said no more on the subject, but patiently endured the long lonely night watches, and the after companionship which had in it all that is most trying and offensive to a refined and delicate woman.
After that first display of jealousy Beth discovered that her husband pried upon her continually. He was very high and mighty on the subject of women spying upon men, but there seemed no meanness he would not compass in order to spy upon a woman. He had duplicate keys to her drawers and boxes, and rummaged through all her possessions when she went out. One day she came upon him standing before her wardrobe, feeling in the pockets of her dresses, and on another occasion she discovered him unawares in her bedroom, picking little scraps of paper out of the slop-pail and piecing them together to see what she had been writing. To Beth, accustomed to the simple, honourable principles of her parents, and to the confidence with which her mother had left her letters lying about, because she knew that not one of her children would dream of looking at them, Dan's turpitude was revolting. On those occasions when she caught him, he did not hear her enter the room, and she made her escape without disturbing him, and stole up to her secret chamber, and sat there, suffering from one of those attacks of nausea and shivering which came upon her in moments of deep disgust.
After that she had an attack of illness which kept her in bed for a week; but even then, feverish and suffering as she was, and yearning for the coolness and liberty of a room to herself, she dared not suggest such a thing for fear of a scene.
While she was still in bed Dan brought her some letters one morning. He made no remark when he gave them to her, but he had opened them as usual, and stood watching her curiously while she read them. The first she looked at was from her sister Bernadine, and had a black border round it; but she took it out of its envelope unsuspiciously, and read the words that were uppermost, "Mamma died this morning." In a moment it flashed upon her that Dan had read the letter, and was waiting now to see the effect of the shock upon her. She immediately, but involuntarily, set herself to baffle his cruel curiosity. With a calm, illegible face she read the letter from beginning to end, folded it, and put it back in its envelope deliberately, then took up another which had also been opened.