As Salve stood and steered for home, he had as yet only a dull consciousness of what had occurred; but there was anger in his eye, and a hard determined look in his face.

His pride had received a terrible shock.

She had suddenly fallen upon him with all this on neutral ground; she had told him plainly that she had been unhappy, and that she felt she had been living under a tyranny the whole time of their married life.

He smiled bitterly--well, he had been right, it seemed, all along in feeling that she was not open with him.
Yes, it was true that they had lived unhappily; but whose fault had it been?
Had she not deceived him when he was young and confiding, and did not know what doubt was?
And since ?--he knew but too well what it had cost her to adapt herself to his humble circumstances.
He felt that the power which he had had over her for so many years was gone.

It was as if she had all of a sudden set down a barrel of gunpowder on the floor of his house and threatened to blow it up.