She
remains where she is, entirely out of your reach."
The young man now turned his trapped and wretched face to the speaker.
"You little know--" he began, then for weakness stopped. "I can't quarrel
with you; wait till I've had a night's rest."
"You shall have it, and welcome," said Senhouse. "But you'll never quarrel
with me. I believe I've got beyond that way of enforcing arguments which I
fear may be unsound. I doubt if I have quarrelled with anybody for twenty
years."
"There are some things which no man can stand," said the other, "and that
was one. Your talk of the soul is very fine; but do you say that you don't
love a woman's body as well as her soul?"
Senhouse was silent for a while; then he said, "No,--I can't say that. You
have me there. I ought to, but I can't. And I think I owe you an apology
for my heat, for the fact is that I've been in much of your position
myself. There was a man once upon a time that I felt like thrashing--for
much of your reason. But I didn't do it--for what seemed to me
unanswerable reason. I did precisely the opposite--I did everything I
could to ensure a miserable marriage for the being I loved best in all the
world. I loathed the man, I loathed the bondage; but that's what I did.
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