Since then, he had
come back every night in agonies of miserable anticipation. Her
illness, and his own miseries, were of course much intensified by
her self-willed habits. When she remained away from home till after
midnight, Julian was always in fear lest some accident had happened
to her, and once or twice of late she had declared (whether truly or
not it was impossible to say) that she had had fits in the open
street. Weather made no difference to her; she would leave home on
the pretence of making necessary purchases, and would come back
drenched with rain. Protest availed nothing, save to irritate her.
At times her conduct was so utterly unreasonable that Julian looked
at her as if to see whether she had lost her senses. And all this he
bore with a patience which few could have rivalled. Moments there
were when she softened, and, in a burst of hysterical weeping,
begged him to forgive her for some unusual violence, pleading her
illness as the cause; and so sensible was he to compassion, that he
always vowed in his mind to bear anything rather than deal harshly
with her. Love for her, in the true sense, he had never felt, but
his pity often led him to effusions of tenderness which love could
scarcely have exceeded.
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