But Mildred had become more
and more unhappy. Her mother, sometimes angrily,
again reproachfully--and that was far harder to bear
--blamed her for ``my miserable marriage to this low,
quarrelsome brute.'' Presbury let no day pass without
telling her openly that she was a beggar living off him,
that she would better marry soon or he would take drastic
steps to release himself of the burden. When he attacked
her before her mother, there was a violent quarrel
from which Mildred fled to hide in her room or in the
remotest part of the garden. When he hunted her out
to insult her alone, she sat or stood with eyes down and
face ghastly pale, mute, quivering. She did not inter-
rupt, did not try to escape. She was like the chained
and spiritless dog that crouches and takes the shower of
blows from its cruel master.
Where could she go? Nowhere. What could she
do? Nothing. In the days of prosperity she had
regarded herself as proud and high spirited. She now
wondered at herself! What had become of the pride?
What of the spirit? She avoided looking at her image
in the glass--that thin, pallid face, those circled eyes,
the drawn, sick expression about the mouth and nose.
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