"You are a pretty simpleton, to set up your opinion against that of all
civilized society!" was the response of incarnate Reason.
From that moment she trembled at her danger, and quivered under the
remorse which terror brings. At times she thought of flying, of abandoning
the husband who did not love her for the one who did; but she was afraid
of being pursued, afraid of discovery. The knowledge that society had
already passed judgment upon her made her see herself in the new light of
a criminal, friendless, hunted and doomed. The penalty of her illegal
grasp after happiness was already tracking her like a bloodhound.
Yet when she further learned that her second marriage was not binding
because of the first, her heart rose in mutiny. Faithful to the only love
that there had been for her in the world, she repeated to herself, a
hundred times a day, "It _is_ binding--it _is_!"
She was in dark insurrection against her kind; at times she was on the
point of bursting out into open defiance. She stared at Duvernois, crazy
to tell him, "I am wedded to another."
He noticed the wild expression, the longing, wide-open eyes, the parted
and eager lips, the trembling chin. At last he said, with a brutality
which had become customary with him, "What are you putting on those airs
for? I suppose you are imagining yourself the heroine of a romance.
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