natural it was that you should
seek some cure for your wound. I understood it, and accused myself,
not you, in that I had driven you to so fatal a remedy." Here Alice
turned round towards him sharply, as though she were going to
interrupt him, but she said nothing, though he paused for her to
speak; and then he went on. "And I understood it well when I heard
that this cure had been too much for you. By heavens, yes! there was
no misunderstanding that. I meant no insult to the man when I upset
his little toy just now. I have not a word to say against him. For
many women he would make a model husband, but you are not one of
them. And when you discovered this yourself, as you did, I understood
that without difficulty. Yes, by heavens! if ever woman had been
driven to a mistake, you had been driven to one there." Here she
looked at him again, and met his eyes. She looked at him with
something of his own fierceness in her face, as though she were
preparing herself to fight with him; but she said nothing at the
moment, and then he again went on. "And, Alice, I understood it
also when you again consented to be my wife. I thought that I still
understood you then. I may have been vain to think so, but surely it
was natural. I believed that the old love had come back upon you, and
again warmed your heart. I thought that it had been cold during our
separation, and I was pleased to think so. Was that unnatural? Put
yourself in my place, and say if you would not have thought so. I
told myself that I understood you then, and I told myself that in
all that you had done you had acted as a true, and good, and loving
woman. I thought of you much, and I saw that your conduct, as a
whole, was intelligible and becoming." The last word grated on
Alice's ears, and she showed her anger by the motion of her foot upon
the floor. Her cousin noted it all, but went on as though he had
not noted it. "But now your present behaviour makes all the rest a
riddle. You have said that you would be my wife, declaring thereby
that you had forgiven my offences, and, as I suppose, reassuring me
of your love; and yet you receive me with all imaginable coldness.
What am I to think of it, and in what way would you have me behave to
you? When last I was here I asked you for a kiss." As he said this he
looked at her with all his eyes, with his mouth just open, so as to
show the edges of his white teeth, with the wound down his face all
wide and purple. The last wo