. She knew well--as
who would not?--what Mona Crozier was hoping to see, and she was
human enough to feel a kind of satisfaction in the wife's chagrin and
disappointment; for the unopened letter in the baize-covered desk which
she had read was sufficient warrant for a punishment and penalty due the
little lady, and not the less because it was so long delayed. Had not
Shiel Crozier had his draught of bitter herbs to drink over the past
five years?

Moreover, Kitty was sure beyond any doubt at all that Shiel Crozier's
wife, when she wrote the letter, did not love her husband, or at least
did not love him in the right or true way. She loved him only so far as
her then selfish nature permitted her to do; only in so far as the pride
of money which she had, and her husband had not, did not prevent; only
in so far as the nature of a tyrant could love--though the tyranny was
pink and white and sweetly perfumed and had the lure of youth. In her
primitive way Kitty had intuitively apprehended the main truth, and that
was enough to justify her in contributing to Mona Crozier's punishment.

Kitty's perceptions were true. At the start, Mona was in nature
proportionate to her size; and when she married she had not loved
Crozier as he had loved her. Maybe that was why--though he may not have
admitted it to himself--he could not bear to be beholden to her when his
ruin came. Love makes all things possible, and there is no humiliation
in taking from one who loves and is loved, that uncapitalised and
communal partnership which is not of the earth earthy. Perhaps that was
why, though Shiel loved her, he had had a bitterness which galled
his soul; why he had a determination to win sufficient wealth to make
himself independent of her. Down at the bottom of his chivalrous Irish
heart he had learned the truth, that to be dependent on her would beget
in her contempt for him, and he would be only her paid paramour and
not her husband in the true sense. Quixotic he had been, but under his
quixotism there was at least the shadow of a great tragical fact, and
it had made him a matrimonial deserter. Whether tragedy or comedy would
emerge was all on the knees of the gods.

"It's a nice room, isn't it?" asked Kitty when there had passed
from Mona Crozier's eyes the glaze or mist--not of tears, but
stupefaction--which had followed her inspection of the walls, the
bureau, the table, and the desk.

"Most comfortable, and so very clean--quite spotles