How little had she studied human nature; how ignorant was she of the
mysterious movements of the human heart; and when, after much painful
experience, she acquired the fatal knowledge, how bitter were the
effects it produced upon her own.
When once his victim was in his toils, Mr. Hurdlestone did not attempt
to conceal from her his real disposition.
He laughed at her credulity in believing that love alone had actuated
him in making her his wife. He related to her, with terrible fidelity,
the scene he had witnessed between her and Algernon in the garden, and
the agonies of jealousy that he endured when he discovered that she
loved another; and he repulsed with cold and sarcastic neglect every
attempt made by Elinor to render their union more tolerable, and his
home more comfortable.
To Elinor his conduct was perfectly unaccountable. She could not believe
that he did not love her, and she was not a little mortified at what she
considered his unnatural coldness and neglect.
"Marcus," she said to him one evening, as she sat on a cushion at his
feet, after making many vain attempts to attract his notice, or win from
him one kind look or word, "you did not always treat me with
indifference; there was a time when I thought you loved me."
"There was a time, madam, when I adored you!--when I would have given
all I possessed in the world to obtain from you one smile.
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