She lowered her head, defeated, and began to put the contents of the dressing-table drawer in order. These onslaughts of his were like outcroppings of rock in the surface of her day. Sometimes, as now, her heart twisted and broke under his determination to wound her. At others, she was almost convinced that she felt nothing more for him, that he had overdrawn on her endurance: then she would stay silent for a while, almost at peace, beyond his reach, not knowing whether she had been utterly vanquished or become completely invincible. However, it required merely some slight attention on his part to restore all her apprehensions—for these extremes of feeling only existed within the compass of her love.

Russell, still watching her, experienced the sensation of being abandoned that always accompanied such victories, as if he had lost the one person who connected him to reality, whose very pain was a guiding thread in the endless labyrinth of his anguish. He thought with despair of her selfishness, all her anxiety for him originating in her own need for his love. She imagines, he thought bitterly, that I could simply be nicer to her; that I could easily be kind if I wanted to, treat her better if I would only try. She had completely failed to realize how far he had descended into this dark place from which no consoling speech could deliver him, no outstretched hand—even hers—bring him back. While she, at one word from him, could be fully restored to life and power and thought. What could she complain of, then, he demanded of her inclined head. Her misery was vicarious, almost parasitical; she knew its cause precisely. It might, in fact, be said of her that she stood continually at the brink of utter happiness. Why, she should count herself among the most fortunate of mortals—blessed art thou among women, Miranda Richmond.