"In six months we shall be man and wife.... Say yes."
"I can make that all right: I'll settle £500 on you and the child."
She looked up; the same look was in her eyes, only modified, softened by some feeling of tenderness which had come into her heart.
He put his arm round her; she was leaning against the table; he was sitting on the edge.
"You know that I mean to act rightly by you."
"I thought as much. Do you care for him?"
He drew her closer to him; she did not resist; he could see that she was weeping. He kissed her on her neck first, and then on her face; and he continued to ask her if she loved the other chap. At last she signified that she did not.
"Then say yes." She murmured that she could not. "You can, you can, you can." He kissed her, all the while reiterating, "You can, you can, you can," until it became a sort of parrot cry. Several minutes elapsed, and the candle began to splutter in its socket. She said--
As she sought for the matches she caught sight of the clock.
And it was impossible to extort a promise from her. "I'm too tired," she said, "let me go."
He took her in his arms and kissed her, and said, "My own little wife."
As he went up the area steps she remembered that he had used the same words before. She tried to think of Fred, but William's great square shoulders had come between her and this meagre little man. She sighed, and felt once again that her will was overborne by a force which she could not control or understand.
She went round the house bolting and locking the doors, seeing that everything was made fast for the night. At the foot of the stairs painful thoughts came upon her, and she drew her hand across her eyes; for she was whelmed with a sense of sorrow, of purely mental misery, which she could not understand, and which she had not strength to grapple with. She was, however, conscious of the fact that life was proving too strong for her, that she could make nothing of it, and she thought that she did not care much what happened. She had fought with adverse fate, and had conquered in a way; she had won countless victories over herself, and now found herself without the necessary strength for the last battle; she had not even strength for blame, and merely wondered why she had let William kiss her. She remembered how she had hated him, and now she hated him no longer. She ought not to have spoken to him; above all, she ought not to have taken him to see the child. But how could she help it?