She dined alone with her husband that evening, and talked as usual,
telling him all she had done and what news there was in the paper, as
she always did, to save him the trouble of reading it. In return he
told her he had been at the ironworks all day, only leaving them in
time to dress for dinner, a piece of news she received with a still
countenance, and her soft eyes fixed on the fire.
She was standing on the hearth at the time, and as he spoke he laid his
hand upon her shoulder caressingly, but she could not bear it. Her
powers of endurance were at an end, and for the first time she shrank
from him openly.
"How you do loathe me, Ideala," he exclaimed.
"Yes, I loathe you," she answered.
And then, in a sudden burst of rage, he raised his hand and struck her.
Ideala's determination to be faithful to what she conceived to be her
duty had kept her quiet hitherto, but now a sense of personal
degradation made her desperate, and she forgot all that. Her first
impulse was to consult somebody, to speak and find means to put an end
to her misery; but I was not there, and to whom should she go for
advice.
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