“She’s got no right to have your photo here. Oh, I hate her, I hate her!”
“You drive me perfectly mad. For God’s sake go.”
“I shan’t go till you come with me.”
He watched her for a moment, trying to command the hatred, the passionate vindictive hatred, which now welled up uncontrollably within him. He strode up to her and seized her arm.
“Look here, until to-day I swear to you before God that I’ve never done anything or said anything that you couldn’t have known. I’ve tried to do my duty, and I’ve done my best to make you happy. I’ve struggled with all my might to love you. And now I don’t wish to deceive you. It’s best that you should know exactly what has happened. This afternoon I told Hilda that I loved her. . . . And she loves me, too.”
Jenny gave a cry of rage, and impulsively with her umbrella gave him a swinging blow on the face. He snatched it from her, and in blind anger broke it across his knee and threw it aside.
“You’ve brought it on yourself,” he said. “You made me too unhappy,”
He looked at Jenny as he might at some strange woman whom he saw for the first time. She stood before him, panting and bewildered, trying to control herself.
“And now it’s the end,” he went on coldly. “The life we led was impossible. I tried to do something that was beyond my power. I’m going away. I can’t and I won’t live with you any longer.”
“Basil, you don’t mean that,” she cried, feeling suddenly that he spoke in deadly earnest. Before she had fancied that he threatened only what he did not mean to perform. “You’ve got me to count with. I won’t let you go.”