Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/190

188 subject for even a moment. A dead weight was upon her spirits, they had been strained to the utmost. Intending to lie down at once, she began unfastening the glittering bands of her hair even while going up stairs; but her hands sank down, and she stood fixed on the threshold as she entered. There sat Lord Marchmont; having broken open her writing-desk, he was looking over the letters; too well did his wife know what he would discover. The very epistle that he was reading she recognised at once. The contents ran thus:— "You say that you despise your husband, that but for dislike you would forget his very existence: your high and generous nature avenges itself. It could have no sympathy with the true or the noble if it sympathised with him. The great fault of his character must be its extreme littleness. There is not room for the warm blood to circulate, for the loftier emotion to expand. You—so sensitive, so high-minded—what can you have in common with him?"