But there was worse to bear: after the violence of his anger came the violence of his love. She had borne at first, dully, like the slave she felt herself; for she had sold herself to him, given herself over bound hand and foot. But now it became intolerable. She could not protest,--what was there to protest against, or to appeal to?--but she could fly. The thought of flight rose in her after the torpor of despair and, with its sense of wings, it felt almost like a joy. She could fly back, back, to be scourged and purified, and then--oh far away she saw it now--was something beyond despair; life once more; life hidden, crippled, but life. A prayer rose like a sob with the thought.
So one night in London her brother Bertram, coming back late to his rooms, found her sitting there.
Bertram was hard, but not unkind. The sight of her white, fixed face touched him. He did not upbraid her, though for the past week he had rehearsed the bitterest of upbraidings. He even spoke soothingly to her when, speechless, she broke into wild sobs. "There, Amabel, there.--Yes, it's a frightful mess you've made of things.--When I think of mother!--Well, I'll say nothing now. You have come back; that is something. You _have_ left him, Amabel?"
"The brute, the scoundrel," said Bertram, at which she moaned a negation.--"You don't still care about him?--Well, I won't question you now.--Perhaps it's not so desperate. Hugh has been very good about it; he's helped me to keep the thing hushed up until we could make sure. I hope we've succeeded; I hope so indeed. Hugh will see you soon, I know; and it can be patched up, no doubt, after a fashion."
But at this Amabel cried:--"I can't.--I can't.--Oh--take me away.--Let me hide until he divorces me. I can't see him."
"Divorces you?" Bertram's voice was sharp. "Have you disgraced publicly--you and us? It's not you I'm thinking of so much as the family name, father and mother. Hugh won't divorce you; he can't; he shan't. After all you're a mere child and he didn't look after you." But this was said rather in threat to Hugh than in leniency to Amabel.
She lay back in the chair, helpless, almost lifeless: let them do with her what they would.
Bertram said that she should spend the night there and that he would see Hugh in the morning. And:--"No; you needn't see him yet, if you feel you can't. It may be arranged without that. Hugh will understand." And this was the first ray of the light that was to grow and grow. Hugh would understand.