he observed
one day.

"Thank you for warning me," Beth answered, descending to his level in
spite of herself. "I will be properly depressed the next time he
comes."

But although she could keep him in check so that he dared not say all
that he had in his mind, she understood him; and the worst of it was
that his coarse and brutal jealousy accustomed her to the suspicion,
and made her contemplate the possibility of such a lapse as he had in
his mind. She began to believe that he would not have tormented
himself so if husbands did not ordinarily have good reason to be
jealous of their wives. She concluded that such treachery of man to
man as he dreaded must be normal. And then also she realised that it
was thought possible for a married woman to fall in love, and even
wondered at last if that would ever be her own case. Dan had, in fact,
destroyed his own best safeguard. If a man would keep his wife from
evil, he should not teach her to suspect herself--neither should he
familiarise her with ideas of vice. Since their marriage Dan's whole
conversation, and the depravity of his tastes and habits, had tended
towards the brutalisation of Beth. Married life for her was one long
initiation into the ways of the vicious.

Dr. Maclure's sordid jealousy made him the laughing-stock of the
place, though he never suspected it. His conceit was too great to let
him suppose that any sentiment of his could provoke ridicule. It
became matter for common gossip, however, and from that time forward
gentlemen ceased to visit the house. Men of a certain kind came still,
men who were bound to Dan by kindred tastes, but not such as he cared
to introduce to Beth. These boon companions generally came in the
evening, and were entertained in the dining-room, where they spent the
night together, smoking, drinking, and talking after the manner of
their kind. Beth could not use her secret chamber after dark for fear
of the light being seen, so she stayed in the drawing-room alone till
she went to bed. She found those evenings interminable, and the nights
more trying still. She could not read or write because of the noise in
the dining-room, and had to fall back on her sewing for occupation;
but sewing left her mind open to any obsession, and only too often,
with the gross laughter from the next room, scraps of the lewd topics
her husband delighted in came to her recollection. When Dan
discoursed about such things he was at the high-water mark of
p