He was silent in cold, frightened rage and despair. ‘If only I could kill her,’ his heart was whispering repeatedly. ‘If only I could kill her — I should be free.’

It seemed to him that death was the only severing of this Gordian knot.

‘Why do you torture me?’ he said.

She flung her arms round his neck.

‘Ah, I don’t want to torture you,’ she said pityingly, as if she were comforting a child. The impertinence made his veins go cold, he was insensible. She held her arms round his neck, in a triumph of pity. And her pity for him was as cold as stone, its deepest motive was hate of him, and fear of his power over her, which she must always counterfoil.