“If he was like you,” she said, “and could listen to sense it might work; but you don’t want to get your head broken, Jordan, and that’s all that would happen. The more he knows he’s wrong and being wicked to me, the more he’d fight to keep me. He’s got into a horrible way of torturing me now. He properly feeds on my sufferings I believe. It’s now or never, for he’s breaking me down and I shan’t be company for any man much longer. Don’t think I want to make a scene, or add difficulties to your life. God knows I only want to be your right hand, and help you, and work as best I can for all the noble things you mean to do. But before that happens, you’ve got to play the hero a bit I’m afraid, and meet his brute force with your bravery and courage.”
In fact Medora would not have missed the necessary theatricals for the world, and a peaceful interchange of husbands did not at all appeal to her. She had no desire to forego the excitement or the fame. She had thought a thousand times of the hum at the Mill when her place knew her no more, and there came the news that she had left her husband for a better and greater man. Probably she loved Kellock after a fashion; certainly she believed she did. In the unreal atmosphere that she now breathed, it seemed to her that Kellock was about to play Perseus to her Andromeda; but she had no wish that the matter should be settled amicably with the dragon. Jordan must do his part; otherwise her rôle would be lessened and reduced below the dignity proper to it.
Since Ned was to blame for everything, reason demanded that retribution fall upon him. Only so could justice—poetical or otherwise—be done. If her departure were not to inflict adequate punishment upon him, then the salt was out of the situation. To Kellock this sounded vindictive, but he could not deny that it was human and natural. He remembered that Medora must not be expected to consider Ned’s feelings; though secretly he wished that she had been able to do so.
But Medora was out for blood and her carnivorous instincts extended even to Kellock himself. He too must suffer, that she might complete her performance with due triumph. She pictured Jordan ostracised and turning to her for comfort and support. She saw herself doubted, misunderstood, but presently triumphing over everybody. She imagined Kellock lifted to heights unattainable without her steadfast aid. She felt a boundless confidence in her own intelligence and inspiration to help him. But he must certainly run away with her as a preliminary. He must outrage convention, focus all eyes and appear in the lurid light that beats on people who have the courage to do such things. She told him so and assisted at the simple preliminaries.