But we always know he wants money,
and it makes him furious. He could kill us with rage."
"Oh!" said Betty. "I see."
"It began that time when he struck her. He said then that it was not
decent that a woman who was married should keep her own money. He made
her give him almost everything she had, but she wants to keep some for
me. He tries to make her get more from grandfather, but she will not
write begging letters, and she won't give him what she is saving for
me."
It was a simple and sordid enough explanation in one sense, and it was
one of which Bettina had known, not one parallel, but several. Having
married to ensure himself power over unquestioned resources, the man had
felt himself disgustingly taken in, and avenged himself accordingly. In
him had been born the makings of a domestic tyrant who, even had he been
favoured by fortune, would have wreaked his humours upon the defenceless
things made his property by ties of blood and marriage, and who, being
unfavoured, would do worse. Betty could see what the years had held for
Rosy, and how her weakness and timidity had been considered as positive
assets. A woman who will cry when she is bullied, may be counted upon to
submit after she has cried.
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