wife, when she wrote the letter, did not love her husband, or at least
did not love him in the right or true way. She loved him only so far as
her then selfish nature permitted her to do; only in so far as the pride
of money which she had, and her husband had not, did not prevent; only in
so far as the nature of a tyrant could love--though the tyranny was pink
and white and sweetly perfumed and had the lure of youth. In her
primitive way Kitty had intuitively apprehended the main truth, and that
was enough to justify her in contributing to Mona Crozier's punishment.

Kitty's perceptions were true. At the start, Mona was in nature
proportionate to her size; and when she married she had not loved Crozier
as he had loved her. Maybe that was why--though he may not have admitted
it to himself--he could not bear to be beholden to her when his ruin
came. Love makes all things possible, and there is no humiliation in
taking from one who loves and is loved, that uncapitalised and communal
partnership which is not of the earth earthy. Perhaps that was why,
though Shiel loved her, he had had a bitterness which galled his soul;
why he had a determination to win sufficient wealth to make himself
independent of her. Down at the bottom of his chivalrous Irish heart
he had learned the truth, that to be dependent on her would beget in her
contempt for him, and he would be only her paid paramour and not her
husband in the true sense. Quixotic he had been, but under his quixotism
there was at least the shadow of a great tragical fact, and it had made
him a matrimonial deserter. Whether tragedy or comedy would emerge was
all on the knees of the gods.

"It's a nice room, isn't it?" asked Kitty when there had passed from
Mona Crozier's eyes the glaze or mist--not of tears, but stupefaction--
which had followed her inspection of the walls, the bureau, the table,
and the desk.