Life and death, in this world or the next, were less weighty than feathers in a scale that measures hundreds of tons.

The very idea of balance was for the moment beyond her imagination.

For a while indeed the pride of a woman at once young, beautiful, and accustomed to authority, had kept her firm in the determination to be loved for herself, as she believed that she deserved to be loved; and just so long as that remained, she had held her head high, confidently expecting that the mask of indifference would soon be shivered, that the eyes she adored would soften with warm light, that the hand she worshipped would tremble suddenly, as though waking to life within her own.

But that pride was gone, and from its disappearance there had been but one step to the most utter degradation of soul to which a woman can descend, and from that again but one step more to a resolution almost stupid in its hardened obstinacy.

But as though to show how completely she was dominated by the man whom she could not win even her last determination had yielded under the slightest pressure from his will.