The morning after the marriage there was a sad surprise for her. Her
husband put aside her proffered caresses, and said:

"Sit down. I have something to say to you. I loved you. That was
before I asked your father to give you to me. His refusal is not my
grievance--I could have endured that. But the things he said of me to
you--that is a different matter. There--you needn't speak; I know quite
well what they were; I got them from authentic sources. Among other
things he said that my character was written in my face; that I was
treacherous, a dissembler, a coward, and a brute without sense of pity or
compassion: the 'Sedgemoor trade-mark,' he called it--and 'white-sleeve
badge.' Any other man in my place would have gone to his house and shot
him down like a dog. I wanted to do it, and was minded to do it, but a
better thought came to me: to put him to shame; to break his heart; to
kill him by inches. How to do it? Through my treatment of you, his
idol! I would marry you; and then--Have patience. You will see."

From that moment onward, for three months, the young wife suffered all
the humiliations, all the insults, all the miseries that the diligent and
inventive mind of the husband could contrive, save physical injuries
only. Her strong pride stood by her, and she kept the secret of her
troubles. Now and then the husband said, "Why don't you go to your
father and tell him?" Then he invented new tortures, applied them, and
asked again. She always answered, "He shall never know by my mouth," and
taunted him with his origin; said she was the lawful slave of a scion of
slaves, and must obey, and would--up to that point, but no further; he
could kill her if he liked, but he could not break her; it was not in the
Sedgemoor breed to do it. At the end of the three months he said, with a
dark significance in his manner, "I have tried all things but one"--and