Part 41 (1/2)

The reproach was ign.o.ble, and he could not be surprised that Amy left the house without another word to him. Yet he resented that, as he had resented her sorrowful jest. The feeling of unmanliness in his own position tortured him into a mood of perversity. Through the day he wrote only a few lines, and on Amy's return he resolved not to speak to her. There was a sense of repose in this change of att.i.tude; he encouraged himself in the view that Amy was treating him with cruel neglect. She, surprised that her friendly questions elicited no answer, looked into his face and saw a sullen anger of which hitherto Reardon had never seemed capable. Her indignation took fire, and she left him to himself.

For a day or two he persevered in his muteness, uttering a word only when it could not be avoided. Amy was at first so resentful that she contemplated leaving him to his ill-temper and dwelling at her mother's house until he chose to recall her. But his face grew so haggard in fixed misery that compa.s.sion at length prevailed over her injured pride. Late in the evening she went to the study, and found him sitting unoccupied.

'Edwin--'

'What do you want?' he asked indifferently.

'Why are you behaving to me like this?'

'Surely it makes no difference to you how I behave? You can easily forget that I exist, and live your own life.'

'What have I done to make this change in you?'

'Is it a change?'

'You know it is.'

'How did I behave before?' he asked, glancing at her.

'Like yourself--kindly and gently.'

'If I always did so, in spite of things that might have embittered another man's temper, I think it deserved some return of kindness from you.'

'What ”things” do you mean?'

'Circ.u.mstances for which neither of us is to blame.'

'I am not conscious of having failed in kindness,' said Amy, distantly.

'Then that only shows that you have forgotten your old self, and utterly changed in your feeling to me. When we first came to live here could you have imagined yourself leaving me alone for long, miserable days, just because I was suffering under misfortunes? You have shown too plainly that you don't care to give me the help even of a kind word. You get away from me as often as you can, as if to remind me that we have no longer any interests in common. Other people are your confidants; you speak of me to them as if I were purposely dragging you down into a mean condition.'

'How can you know what I say about you?'

'Isn't it true?' he asked, flas.h.i.+ng an angry glance at her.

'It is not true. Of course I have talked to mother about our difficulties; how could I help it?'

'And to other people.'

'Not in a way that you could find fault with.'

'In a way that makes me seem contemptible to them. You show them that I have made you poor and unhappy, and you are glad to have their sympathy.'

'What you mean is, that I oughtn't to see anyone. There's no other way of avoiding such a reproach as this. So long as I don't laugh and sing before people, and a.s.sure them that things couldn't be more hopeful, I shall be asking for their sympathy, and against you. I can't understand your unreasonableness.'

'I'm afraid there is very little in me that you can understand. So long as my prospects seemed bright, you could sympathise readily enough; as soon as ever they darkened, something came between us. Amy, you haven't done your duty. Your love hasn't stood the test as it should have done.

You have given me no help; besides the burden of cheerless work I have had to bear that of your growing coldness. I can't remember one instance when you have spoken to me as a wife might--a wife who was something more than a man's housekeeper.'

The pa.s.sion in his voice and the harshness of the accusation made her unable to reply.