She felt nothing but that Arthur was
cruel--cruel to write so, cruel not to marry her. Reasons why he could
not marry her had no existence for her mind; how could she believe in
any misery that could come to her from the fulfilment of all she had
been longing for and dreaming of? She had not the ideas that could make
up the notion of that misery.
As she threw down the letter again, she caught sight of her face in the
glass; it was reddened now, and wet with tears; it was almost like a
companion that she might complain to--that would pity her. She leaned
forward on her elbows, and looked into those dark overflooding eyes and
at the quivering mouth, and saw how the tears came thicker and thicker,
and how the mouth became convulsed with sobs.
The shattering of all her little dream-world, the crushing blow on
her new-born passion, afflicted her pleasure-craving nature with an
overpowering pain that annihilated all impulse to resistance, and
suspended her anger. She sat sobbing till the candle went out, and then,
wearied, aching, stupefied with crying, threw herself on the bed without
undressing and went to sleep.
There was a feeble dawn in the room when Hetty awoke, a little after
four o'clock, with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke upon
her gradually as she began to discern the objects round her in the dim
light.
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