"Coward!" said she, "you want liquor to give you courage, and then
you've only heart enough to strike women."
"It was only in self-defence, my dear," said Hayes, whose courage
had all gone. "You tried, you know, to--to--"
"To STAB you, and I wish I had!" said Mrs. Hayes, setting her teeth,
and glaring at him like a demon; and so saying she sprung out of
bed. There was a great stain of blood on her pillow. "Look at it,"
said she. "That blood's of your shedding!" and at this Hayes fairly
began to weep, so utterly downcast and frightened was the miserable
man. The wretch's tears only inspired his wife with a still greater
rage and loathing; she cared not so much for the blow, but she hated
the man: the man to whom she was tied for ever--for ever! The bar
between her and wealth, happiness, love, rank perhaps. "If I were
free," thought Mrs. Hayes (the thought had been sitting at her
pillow all night, and whispering ceaselessly into her ear)--,"If I
were free, Max would marry me; I know he would:--he said so
yesterday!"
* * *
As if by a kind of intuition, old Wood seemed to read all this
woman's thoughts; for he said that day with a sneer, that he would
wager she was thinking how much better it would be to be a Count's
lady than a poor miser's wife.
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