“Let me go, Jenny; I can’t stand it any more,” he cried passionately. “I feel as if I shall go mad.” He stretched out his hands, appealing. “I did my best for you a year ago. I gave you all I had to give; it was little enough, in all conscience. Now I ask you to give me back my freedom.”
She was perfectly distracted; it had never occurred to her for a moment that things would go so far.
“You only think of yourself!” she exclaimed. “What’s to become of me?”
“You’ll be much happier,” he answered eagerly, thinking she would yield. “It’s the best thing for both of us.”
“But I love you, Basil.”
“You!” He stared at her with dismay and consternation. “Why, you’ve tortured me for six mouths beyond all endurance. You’ve made all my days a burden to me. You’ve made my life a perfect hell.”
She stared at him, sheer panic in her eyes; each word was like a death-blow, and she gasped and shuddered. Like a hunted thing, she looked this way and that for means of escape, but nothing offered; and then, groping strangely, seeking to hide herself, she staggered to the door.
“Give me time to think it over,” she said hoarsely.
Next morning at breakfast Basil, with elaborate politeness, spoke of trivial things, but Jenny noticed that he kept his eyes averted, and it cut her to the quick because he used her as he might a chance acquaintance. It seemed then that even stony silence would have been more easy to endure. Rising from the table, he asked whether she had considered his proposal.
“No; I didn’t think you really meant it.”