She had known love (such as he required) to be impossible as regarded her husband, but she had thought esteem and a certain regard enhanced by his business ability, was within her reach. She now discovered that he was not true, that he had no great capacity or clearness of understanding, and that his standard in all and everything was as low as it could be.
This discovery was not so much a shock to her as an excuse for her not caring more for him. She had been guided by instinct to a right judgment of his character; and there was a sense of having understood him from the first, which was not without its gratification.
All this went down on paper--as a critical essay it was admirable, trenchant, concise, and to the point--but it was a terrible picture judged dispassionately, and, as Margaret finished it, she hastily put it into her blotting-book; she felt troubled and guilty when her husband called her, and she resolved to destroy this record of her inmost convictions. She had perhaps been wrong in writing it, even for her own eye. Then they left that evening.
The journey was hurried over with small regard to her comfort and convenience, but Margaret heeded nothing; the thoughts of once more being within reach of Grace supported her through fatigue and all else.
She was quite aware as regarded her husband that had she chosen to flatter him, and had she only been able to stoop a little, she might have ruled him, but her principle was too high for this, and she made a point of being honest with him to her own loss.
When they reached London it was yet early in the morning, and they went, greatly to her surprise, to a small and very second-rate hotel in the City, where everything was dingy and mean.
"Are we not going home?" Margaret asked, astonished.
"The truth is that there are some people in my house."
"Oh! it is let," said Margaret, in a tone of disappointment. "Then what are we to do?"
"We might take lodgings--they must not be far from here, and then we can see----" He turned on his heel and left her.
When she had rested, she started in a cab to look for lodgings--a weary quest--and all she saw near that part of London were so dingy and so dirty that she returned to the hotel in despair. Her husband came in looking so white and so utterly broken down that she could not imagine what had happened; but he would tell her nothing.