imes wished he would kill her: or that
she would kill him. Neither event happened.

And neither of them understood what was happening. How should they? They
were both dazed, horrified, and mortified. He took to leaving her alone
as much as was possible. But when he _had_ to come home, there was
her terrible will, like a flat, cold snake coiled round his soul and
squeezing him to death. Yes, she did not relent. She was a good wife and
mother. All her duties she fulfilled. But she was not one to yield. _He_
must yield. That was written in eternal letters, on the iron tablet of
her will. _He_ must yield. She the woman, the mother of his children,
how should she ever even think to yield? It was unthinkable. He, the
man, the weak, the false, the treacherous, the half-hearted, it was he
who must yield. Was not hers the divine will and the divine right? Ha,
she would be less than woman if she ever capitulated, abandoned her
divine responsibility as woman! No, _he_ must yield.

So, he was unfaithful to her. Piling reproach after reproach upon
himself, he added adultery to his brutality. And this was the beginning
of the end. She was more than maddened: but he began to grow silent,
unresponsive, as if he did not hear her. He was unfaithful to her:
and oh, in such a low way. Such shame, such shame! But he only smiled
carelessly now, and asked her what she wanted. She had asked for all she
got. That he reiterated. And that was all he would do.

Terrible was, that she found even his smile of insolent indifference
half-beautiful. Oh, bitter chain to bear! But she summoned up all
her strange woman's will. She fought against his fascination, the
fascination he exerted over her. With fearful efforts of will she fought
against it, and mastered it. And then, suddenly, horror and agony of
it, up it would rush in her again, her unbearable desire for him, the
longing for his contact, his quality of beauty.

That was a cross hard to bear. Yet even that she bore. And schooled
herself into a fretful, petulant manner of indifference. Her odd,
whimsical petulance hid a will which he, and he alone, knew to be
stronger than steel, strong as a diabolical, cold, grey snake that
presses and presses and cannot-relax: nay, cannot relax. She became the
same as he. Even in her moments of most passionate desire for him, the
cold and snake-like tension of her will never relaxed, and the cold,
snake-like eye of her intention never closed.

So, till it