“‘Let me be, Ruth, my pretty little Ruth; I’m up to no wrong, I promise you. Be kind to your poor Rawdon, darling,’ and he tried to kiss her.
“But instantly with his servility she regained her disdain of him. She pushed him roughly from her.
“‘Get out then; don’t bother me.’
“He went, swiftly, thankfully.
“The furtiveness which she had already noticed clung to him; he slunk about like a Jew, watching her covertly, answering her, when she spoke, in his low, propitiatory voice. She had lost all fear of him now. She ordered him about in a peremptory way, and he obeyed her, sulkily, surlily, when she was not looking, but with obsequious alacrity when her eyes were on him. His chief desire seemed to be to get out of her sight, out of her company. He moved noiselessly about the house, seeking to conceal his presence; ‘pussy-footed,’ was the word she used. Their relations were entirely reversed. With the acquiescent philosophy of the poor, she had almost ceased to wonder at the new state of affairs thus mysteriously come about. She dated it from the day he had first taken to the attic, realising also that a great leap forward had been made from the hour of her midnight visit to his bedroom. He was an altered being. From time to time he tried to defy her, to reassert himself, but she held firm, and he slid back again to his cowed manner. She became aware that he was afraid of her, though the knowledge neither surprised nor startled her over-much. She merely accepted it into her scheme of life. She was also perfectly prepared that one day he should break out, beat her, and reassume his authority as master of the house and of her person.
“This, then, was the position at Westmacotts’ while I toiled at Ephesus and received with such wide-spaced regularity little packets of seed from Ruth. The situation developed rapidly at a date corresponding to the time when MacPherson fell ill with cholera. It was then three months since Westmacott, by going to the attic, had made the first concession to his creeping cowardice. He was looking ill, Ruth told me; his eyes were bright, and she thought he slept badly at night. Her questioning him on this subject precipitated the crisis.
“‘Rawdon, you’re looking feverish.’
“‘Oh, no,’ he said nervously. They were at breakfast.
“‘Ay, dad,’ said the eldest boy, ‘I heard you tossing about last night.’
“Ruth turned on him with that bullying instinct that she could not control, and asked roughly,—