"You're
ashamed at nothing. You've made every one in the place laugh at us.
You've ruined Paul's life here--yes, you have. But you don't care.
Do you think I mind for myself? But I love Paul, and I've looked
after him all his life, and he was happy until you came--yes, he
was. You've made us all laughed at. You're bad all through, Maggie,
and the laws of the Church aren't anything to you at all."
There was a pause. Maggie, a little calmer, realised Grace, who had
sunk into a chair. She saw that stout middle-aged woman with the
flat expressionless face and the dull eyes. She saw the flabby hands
nervously trembling, and she longed suddenly to be kind and
affectionate.
"Oh, Grace," she cried. "I know I've been everything I shouldn't,
only don't you see I can't give up my friends? And I told Paul
before we married that I'd loved some one else and wasn't religious.
But perhaps it isn't too late. Let's be friends. I'll try harder
than ever before--"
Then she saw, in the way that Grace shrank back, her eyes staring
with the glazed fascination that a bird has for a snake, that there
was more than dislike and jealousy here, there was the wild
unreasoning fear that a child has for the dark.
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