"
"Bessie and he would fight like cat and dog," Mrs. Day said. "They are
always fighting now. She says such things to him, and he to her!
Environment has told on Bessie. She says things no lady should say. My
life would be unbearable."
"It is not to be thought of for a moment."
"But there are the debts I cannot pay. There is poor Bernard. I ought to
do it, Deleah. I know I ought. But I have had miseries enough."
When Deleah left her, Mrs. Day still sat a huddled heap upon the sofa. "I
have had miseries enough," she repeated; and upon that text she spoke to
herself--going over in faithful detail the troubles she had known--vainest
and most useless occupation in which a woman can indulge.
Her orphaned, dependent childhood; her marriage. It had been loveless on
her part, but she had cared a little, believing that love on her husband's
part would suffice. Was it love, ever at all? Is love possible where
tenderness, courtesy, consideration do not exist? Time going on, daily she
had suffered his incivility, the despite he did to her sense of what was
due to her as his wife, the mother of his children, the mistress of his
home. Habit, and love for her children, had made life tolerable. But for
twenty years he and she had lived side by side in the outward union of
inwardly divided minds.
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