“I suppose to you that seems very wrong?”
“Can you expect me to say anything else, Mrs. Protheroe?”
“No—no, I suppose not.”
I went on, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible:
“You are a married woman—”
She interrupted me.
“Oh! I know—I know. Do you think I haven’t gone over all that again and again? I’m not a bad woman really—I’m not. And things aren’t—aren’t—as you might think they are.”
I said gravely: “I’m glad of that.”
She asked rather timorously:
“Are you going to tell my husband?”
I said rather dryly:
“There seems to be a general idea that a clergyman is incapable of behaving like a gentleman. That is not true.”
She threw me a grateful glance.
“I’m so unhappy. Oh! I’m so dreadfully unhappy. I can’t go on. I simply can’t go on. And I don’t know what to do.” Her voice rose with slightly hysterical note in it. “You don’t know what my life is like. I’ve been miserable with Lucius from the beginning. No woman could be happy with him. I wish he were dead. … It’s awful, but I do … I’m desperate. I tell you, I’m desperate.”
She started and looked over at the window.