The blood beat in Betty Vanderpoel's veins.
"Rosy," she said, looking steadily in the faded face, "tell me this. Did
you never think of getting away from him, of going somewhere, and trying
to reach father, by cable, or letter, by some means?"
Lady Anstruthers' weary and wrinkled little smile was a pitiably
illuminating thing.
"My dear" she said, "if you are strong and beautiful and rich and well
dressed, so that people care to look at you, and listen to what you say,
you can do things. But who, in England, will listen to a shabby, dowdy,
frightened woman, when she runs away from her husband, if he follows
her and tells people she is hysterical or mad or bad? It is the shabby,
dowdy woman who is in the wrong. At first, I thought of nothing else but
trying to get away. And once I went to Stornham station. I walked all
the way, on a hot day. And just as I was getting into a third-class
carriage, Nigel marched in and caught my arm, and held me back. I
fainted and when I came to myself I was in the carriage, being driven
back to the Court, and he was sitting opposite to me. He said, 'You
fool! It would take a cleverer woman than you to carry that out.' And I
knew it was the awful truth.
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