"
"Have you spoken to my father?"
"No."
"Or to Violet?"
"Yes."
"And what does she say?"
"What can she say? She has nothing to say. Nor have you. Nor, if I am
driven to leave him, can I make the world understand why I do so. To
be simply miserable, as I am, is nothing to the world."
"I could never understand why you married him."
"Do not be cruel to me, Oswald."
"Cruel! I will stick by you in any way that you wish. If you think
well of it, I will go off to Loughlinter to-morrow, and tell him that
you will never return to him. And if you are not safe from him here
at Saulsby, you shall go abroad with us. I am sure Violet would not
object. I will not be cruel to you."
But in truth neither of Lady Laura's councillors was able to give
her advice that could serve her. She felt that she could not leave
her husband without other cause than now existed, although she felt,
also, that to go back to him was to go back to utter wretchedness.
And when she saw Violet and her brother together there came to her
dreams of what might have been her own happiness had she kept herself
free from those terrible bonds in which she was now held a prisoner.
She could not get out of her heart the remembrance of that young man
who would have been her lover, if she would have let him,--of whose
love for herself she had been aware before she had handed herself
over as a bale of goods to her unloved, unloving husband.
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