“I didn’t marry you,” he said, in a snarling tone.
“I’d like to know what you did, then, in Montreal?” she answered.
“Well, I didn’t marry you,” he answered. “You can get that out of your head. You talk as though you didn’t know.”
Carrie looked at him a moment, her eyes distending. She had believed it was all legal and binding enough.
“What did you lie to me for, then?” she asked, fiercely. “What did you force me to run away with you for?”
Her voice became almost a sob.
“Force!” he said, with curled lip. “A lot of forcing I did.”
“Oh!” said Carrie, breaking under the strain, and turning. “Oh, oh!” and she hurried into the front room.
Hurstwood was now hot and waked up. It was a great shaking up for him, both mental and moral. He wiped his brow as he looked around, and then went for his clothes and dressed. Not a sound came from Carrie; she ceased sobbing when she heard him dressing. She thought, at first, with the faintest alarm, of being left without money—not of losing him, though he might be going away permanently. She heard him open the top of the wardrobe and take out his hat. Then the dining-room door closed, and she knew he had gone.
After a few moments of silence, she stood up, dry-eyed, and looked out the window. Hurstwood was just strolling up the street, from the flat, toward Sixth Avenue.