Please go at once and see."
"I never knew you were such a coward," he rejoined without stirring. "Who
was at the opera?"
"I won't talk to you till you do what I ask."
"That's a staggerin' blow."
She sprang up with an exclamation of anger. Her nerves were on edge and
she felt inclined to scream out.
"I never thought you could be so--such a cad to a woman, Fritz," she
said.
She moved towards the door. As she did so she heard a cab in the square
outside, a rattle of wheels, then silence. It had stopped. Her heart
seemed to stand still too. She knew now that she was a coward, though not
in the way Fritz meant. She was a coward with regard to him. Her jealousy
had prompted her to do a mad thing. In doing it she had actually meant to
produce a violent scene. It had seemed to her that such a scene would
relieve the tension of her nerves, of her heart, would clear the air. But
now that the scene seemed imminent--if Fritz had forgotten, and she was
certain he had forgotten, to lock the door--she felt heart and nerves
were failing her. She felt that she had risked too much, far too much.
With almost incredible swiftness she remembered her imprudence in
speaking to Carey at Arkell House and how it had only served to put a
weapon into her husband's hand, a weapon he had not scrupled to use in
his selfish way to further his own pleasure and her distress. That stupid
failure had not sufficiently warned her, and now she was on the edge of
some greater disaster.
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