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Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Captives"

She felt, desperate also on
her side, that she could comfort and make him happy, if only he
would want something less from her than passion. But always after an
hour or a little more, he crept away again to his own room,
disappointed, angered, frustrated. These hours were the stranger
because, during the day, he showed her nothing of this mood, but was
kindly and friendly and distant.
She would have done anything for him; she tried sometimes to be
affectionate to him, but always, at once, he turned upon her with a
hungry, impassioned look . . .
She knew, without any kind of doubt, that the only way that she
could make him happy again was to leave him. His was not a nature to
brood, for the rest of his days, on something that he had lost.
Only once did he make any allusion to the coming Revival services.
He burst out one day, at luncheon: "The most scandalous thing!" he
said. "We had them here once, years ago, and the harm they did no
one would believe. I've been to Tamar about it; he can do nothing,
unless they disturb the public peace, of course. He had the
impertinence to tell me that they behaved very well last time they
were here!"
"I don't like that man," said Grace.


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