ad done her best to be
just and temperate, to see only the truth. They were a part, they were
a kind of creation and consequence, of her husband's very presence. They
were not his misdeeds, his turpitudes; she accused him of nothing--that
is but of one thing, which was NOT a crime. She knew of no wrong he had
done; he was not violent, he was not cruel: she simply believed he hated
her. That was all she accused him of, and the miserable part of it was
precisely that it was not a crime, for against a crime she might have
found redress. He had discovered that she was so different, that she was
not what he had believed she would prove to be. He had thought at first
he could change her, and she had done her best to be what he would like.
But she was, after all, herself--she couldn't help that; and now there
was no use pretending, wearing a mask or a dress, for he knew her and
had made up his mind. She was not afraid of him; she had no apprehension
he would hurt her; for the ill-will he bore her was not of that sort.
He would if possible never give her a pretext, never put himself in the
wrong. Isabel, scanning the future with dry, fixed eyes, saw that he
would have the better of her there. She would give him many pretexts,
she would often put herself in the wrong. There were times when she
almost pitied him; for if she had not deceived him in intention she
understood how completely she must have done so in fact. She had effaced
herself when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretending
there was less of her than there really was. It was because she had been
under the extraordinary charm that he, on his side, had taken pains to
put forth. He was not changed; he had not disguised himself, during the
year of his courtship, any more than she. But she had seen only half his
nature then, as one saw the disk of the moon when it was partly masked
by the shadow of the earth. She saw the full moon now--she saw the
whole man. She had kept still, as it were, so that he should have a free
field, and yet in spite of this she had mistaken a part for the whole.

Ah, she had been immensely under the charm! It had not passed away; it
was there still: she still knew perfectly what it was that made Osmond
delightful when he chose to be. He had wished to be when he made love
to her, and as she had wished to be charmed it was not wonderful he
had succeeded. He had succeeded because he had been sincere; it never
occurred to her now to d