Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/344

334 in the end, but it is all my fault;—and then, I am roused to defend myself—sometimes, with bitter recrimination. This is a kind of injustice I cannot patiently endure. Have I not laboured long and hard to save him from this very vice? would I not labour still, to deliver him from it, if I could? But could I do so by fawning upon him and caressing him when I know that he scorns me? Is it my fault that I have lost my influence with him, or that he has forfeited every claim to my regard? And should I seek a reconciliation with him, when I feel that I abhor him, and that he despises me?—and while he continues still to correspond with Lady Lowborough, as I know he does? No, never, never, never!—he may drink himself dead, but it is my fault!

Yet I do my part to save him still: I give him to understand that drinking makes his eyes dull, and his face red and bloated; and that it tends to render him imbecile in body and mind; and if Annabella were to see him as often as II often [sic]