Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/254

242 him; and now, I suppose, I'm tied for life to a mad dog."

"Good God!" said the Reverend Christopher. "I thought it all out—oh, many, many nights!—and I made up my mind that I would go out and enjoy myself. I never had a good time when I was a girl. And another thing I decided—quite definitely—that if ever I fell in love I would—I should have the right to—I mean that I wouldn't let a horrible, degraded brute of a lunatic stand between me and the man I loved. And I was quite sure that I was right."

"And do you still think this?" he asked in a low voice.

"Ah," she said, "you've changed everything! I don't think the same about anything as I used to do. I think those two years with him must have made me nearly as mad as he is. And then I was so young! I am only twenty-three now, you know—and it did seem hard never to have had any fun. I did want so much to be happy."

She had not intended to speak like this, but even as she spoke she saw that this truth-telling