s if--the girl, being five thousand miles away,
would continue to love him. He wanted nothing more, He prayed his God
for nothing more. Well, he was a sentimentalist.

And the moment that she heard that, Leonora determined that the girl
should not go five thousand miles away and that she should not continue
to love Edward. The way she worked it was this:

She continued to tell the girl that she must belong to Edward; she was
going to get a divorce; she was going to get a dissolution of marriage
from Rome. But she considered it to be her duty to warn the girl of the
sort of monster that Edward was. She told the girl of La Dolciquita, of
Mrs Basil, of Maisie Maidan, of Florence. She spoke of the agonies
that she had endured during her life with the man, who was violent,
overbearing, vain, drunken, arrogant, and monstrously a prey to his
sexual necessities. And, at hearing of the miseries her aunt had
suffered--for Leonora once more had the aspect of an aunt to the
girl--with the swift cruelty of youth and, with the swift solidarity
that attaches woman to woman, the girl made her resolves. Her aunt said
incessantly: "You must save Edward's life; you must save his life. All
that he needs is a little period of satisfaction from you. Then he will
tire of you as he has of the others. But you must save his life."

And, all the while, that wretched fellow knew--by a curious instinct
that runs between human beings living together--exactly what was going
on. And he remained dumb; he stretched out no finger to help himself.
All that he required to keep himself a decent member of society was,
that the girl, five thousand miles away, should continue to love him.
They were putting a stopper upon that.

I have told you that the girl came one night to his room. And that
was the real hell for him. That was the picture that never left his
imagination--the girl, in the dim light, rising up at the foot of his
bed. He said that it seemed to have a greenish sort of effect as if
there were a greenish tinge in the shadows of the tall bedposts that
framed her body. And she looked at him with her straight eyes of an
unflinching cruelty and she said: "I am ready to belong to you--to save
your life."

He answered: "I don't want it; I don't want it; I don't want it."

And he says that he didn't want it; that he would have hated himself;
that it was unthinkable. And all the while he had the immense temptation
to do the unthinkable thing, not fr