An excerpt from the original text.(complete · 2444 words)
ctober 9th.—It was on the night of the 4th, a little after tea, that
Annabella had been singing and playing, with Arthur as usual at her
side: she had ended her song, but still she sat at the instrument; and
he stood leaning on the back of her chair, conversing in scarcely
audible tones, with his face in very close proximity with hers. I
looked at Lord Lowborough. He was at the other end of the room, talking
with Messrs. Hargrave and Grimsby; but I saw him dart towards his lady
and his host a quick, impatient glance, expressive of intense
disquietude, at which Grimsby smiled. Determined to interrupt the
tête-à-tête, I rose, and, selecting a piece of music from the music
stand, stepped up to the piano, intending to ask the lady to play it;
but I stood transfixed and speechless on seeing her seated there,
listening, with what seemed an exultant smile on her flushed face to
his soft murmurings, with her hand quietly surrendered to his clasp.
The blood rushed first to my heart, and then to my head; for there was
more than this: almost at the moment of my approach, he cast a hurried
glance over his shoulder towards the other occupants of the room, and
then ardently pressed the unresisting hand to his lips. On raising his
eyes, he beheld me, and dropped them again, confounded and dismayed.
She saw me too, and confronted me with a look of hard defiance. I laid
the music on the piano, and retired. I felt ill; but I did not leave
the room: happily, it was getting late, and could not be long before
the company dispersed.
I went to the fire, and leant my head against the chimney-piece. In a
minute or two, some one asked me if I felt unwell. I did not answer;
indeed, at the time, I knew not what was said; but I mechanically
looked up, and saw Mr. Hargrave standing beside me on the rug.
“Shall I get you a glass of wine?” said he.
“No, thank you,” I replied; and, turning from him, I looked round. Lady
Lowborough was beside her husband, bending over him as he sat, with her
hand on his shoulder, softly talking and smiling in his face; and
Arthur was at the table, turning over a book of engravings. I seated
myself in the nearest chair; and Mr. Hargrave, finding his services
were not desired, judiciously withdrew. Shortly after, the company
broke up, and, as the guests were retiring to their rooms, Arthur
approached me, smiling with the utmost assurance.
“Are you very angry, Helen?” murmured he.
“This is no jest, Arthur,” said I, seriously, but as calmly as I
could—“unless you think it a jest to lose my affection for ever.”
“What! so bitter?” he exclaimed, laughingly, clasping my hand between
both his; but I snatched it away, in indignation—almost in disgust, for
he was obviously affected with wine.
“Then I must go down on my knees,” said he; and kneeling before me,
with clasped hands, uplifted in mock humiliation, he continued
imploringly—“Forgive me, Helen—dear Helen, forgive me, and I’ll never
do it again!” and, burying his face in his handkerchief, he affected to
sob aloud.
Leaving him thus employed, I took my candle, and, slipping quietly from
the room, hastened up-stairs as fast as I could. But he soon discovered
that I had left him, and, rushing up after me, caught me in his arms,
just as I had entered the chamber, and was about to shut the door in
his face.
“No, no, by heaven, you sha’n’t escape me so!” he cried. Then, alarmed
at my agitation, he begged me not to put myself in such a passion,
telling me I was white in the face, and should kill myself if I did so.
“Let me go, then,” I murmured; and immediately he released me—and it
was well he did, for I was really in a passion. I sank into the
easy-chair and endeavoured to compose myself, for I wanted to speak to
him calmly. He stood beside me, but did not venture to touch me or to
speak for a few seconds; then, approaching a little nearer, he dropped
on one knee—not in mock humility, but to bring himself nearer my level,
and leaning his hand on the arm of the chair, he began in a low voice:
“It is all nonsense, Helen—a jest, a mere nothing—not worth a thought.
Will you never learn,” he continued more boldly, “that you have
nothing to fear from me? that I love you wholly and entirely?—or if,”
he added with a lurking smile, “I ever give a thought to another, you
may well spare it, for those fancies are here and gone like a flash of
lightning, while my love for you burns on steadily, and for ever, like
the sun. You little exorbitant tyrant, will not that—”
“Be quiet a moment, will you, Arthur?” said I, “and listen to me—and
don’t think I’m in a jealous fury: I am perfectly calm. Feel my hand.”
And I gravely extended it towards him—but closed it upon his with an
energy that seemed to disprove the assertion, and made him smile. “You
needn’t smile, sir,” said I, still tightening my grasp, and looking
steadfastly on him till he almost quailed before me. “You may think it
all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my
jealousy; but take care you don’t rouse my hate instead. And when you
have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to
kindle it again.”
“Well, Helen, I won’t repeat the offence. But I meant nothing by it, I
assure you. I had taken too much wine, and I was scarcely myself at the
time.”
“You often take too much; and that is another practice I detest.” He
looked up astonished at my warmth. “Yes,” I continued; “I never
mentioned it before, because I was ashamed to do so; but now I’ll tell
you that it distresses me, and may disgust me, if you go on and suffer
the habit to grow upon you, as it will if you don’t check it in time.
But the whole system of your conduct to Lady Lowborough is not
referable to wine; and this night you knew perfectly well what you were
doing.”
“Well, I’m sorry for it,” replied he, with more of sulkiness than
contrition: “what more would you have?”
“You are sorry that I saw you, no doubt,” I answered coldly.
“If you had not seen me,” he muttered, fixing his eyes on the carpet,
“it would have done no harm.”
My heart felt ready to burst; but I resolutely swallowed back my
emotion, and answered calmly,
“You think not?”
“No,” replied he, boldly. “After all, what have I done? It’s
nothing—except as you choose to make it a subject of accusation and
distress.”
“What would Lord Lowborough, your friend, think, if he knew all? or
what would you yourself think, if he or any other had acted the same
part to me, throughout, as you have to Annabella?”
“I would blow his brains out.”
“Well, then, Arthur, how can you call it nothing—an offence for which
you would think yourself justified in blowing another man’s brains out?
Is it nothing to trifle with your friend’s feelings and mine—to
endeavour to steal a woman’s affections from her husband—what he values
more than his gold, and therefore what it is more dishonest to take?
Are the marriage vows a jest; and is it nothing to make it your sport
to break them, and to tempt another to do the same? Can I love a man
that does such things, and coolly maintains it is nothing?”
“You are breaking your marriage vows yourself,” said he, indignantly
rising and pacing to and fro. “You promised to honour and obey me, and
now you attempt to hector over me, and threaten and accuse me, and call
me worse than a highwayman. If it were not for your situation, Helen, I
would not submit to it so tamely. I won’t be dictated to by a woman,
though she be my wife.”
“What will you do then? Will you go on till I hate you, and then accuse
me of breaking my vows?”
He was silent a moment, and then replied: “You never will hate me.”
Returning and resuming his former position at my feet, he repeated more
vehemently—“You cannot hate me as long as I love you.”
“But how can I believe that you love me, if you continue to act in this
way? Just imagine yourself in my place: would you think I loved
you, if I did so? Would you believe my protestations, and honour
and trust me under such circumstances?”
“The cases are different,” he replied. “It is a woman’s nature to be
constant—to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for
ever—bless them, dear creatures! and you above them all; but you must
have some commiseration for us, Helen; you must give us a little more
licence, for, as Shakespeare has it—
However we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won
Than women’s are.”
“Do you mean by that, that your fancies are lost to me, and won by Lady
Lowborough?”
“No! heaven is my witness that I think her mere dust and ashes in
comparison with you, and shall continue to think so, unless you drive
me from you by too much severity. She is a daughter of earth; you are
an angel of heaven; only be not too austere in your divinity, and
remember that I am a poor, fallible mortal. Come now, Helen; won’t you
forgive me?” he said, gently taking my hand, and looking up with an
innocent smile.
“If I do, you will repeat the offence.”
“I swear by—”
“Don’t swear; I’ll believe your word as well as your oath. I wish I
could have confidence in either.”
“Try me, then, Helen: only trust and pardon me this once, and you shall
see! Come, I am in hell’s torments till you speak the word.”
I did not speak it, but I put my hand on his shoulder and kissed his
forehead, and then burst into tears. He embraced me tenderly; and we
have been good friends ever since. He has been decently temperate at
table, and well-conducted towards Lady Lowborough. The first day he
held himself aloof from her, as far as he could without any flagrant
breach of hospitality: since that he has been friendly and civil, but
nothing more—in my presence, at least, nor, I think, at any other time;
for she seems haughty and displeased, and Lord Lowborough is manifestly
more cheerful, and more cordial towards his host than before. But I
shall be glad when they are gone, for I have so little love for
Annabella that it is quite a task to be civil to her, and as she is the
only woman here besides myself, we are necessarily thrown so much
together. Next time Mrs. Hargrave calls I shall hail her advent as
quite a relief. I have a good mind to ask Arthur’s leave to invite the
old lady to stay with us till our guests depart. I think I will. She
will take it as a kind attention, and, though I have little relish for
her society, she will be truly welcome as a third to stand between Lady
Lowborough and me.
The first time the latter and I were alone together, after that unhappy
evening, was an hour or two after breakfast on the following day, when
the gentlemen were gone out, after the usual time spent in the writing
of letters, the reading of newspapers, and desultory conversation. We
sat silent for two or three minutes. She was busy with her work, and I
was running over the columns of a paper from which I had extracted all
the pith some twenty minutes before. It was a moment of painful
embarrassment to me, and I thought it must be infinitely more so to
her; but it seems I was mistaken. She was the first to speak; and,
smiling with the coolest assurance, she began,—
“Your husband was merry last night, Helen: is he often so?”
My blood boiled in my face; but it was better she should seem to
attribute his conduct to this than to anything else.
“No,” replied I, “and never will be so again, I trust.”
“You gave him a curtain lecture, did you?”
“No! but I told him I disliked such conduct, and he promised me not to
repeat it.”
“I thought he looked rather subdued this morning,” she continued;
“and you, Helen? you’ve been weeping, I see—that’s our grand resource,
you know. But doesn’t it make your eyes smart? and do you always find
it to answer?”
“I never cry for effect; nor can I conceive how any one can.”
“Well, I don’t know: I never had occasion to try it; but I think if
Lowborough were to commit such improprieties, I’d make him cry. I
don’t wonder at your being angry, for I’m sure I’d give my husband a
lesson he would not soon forget for a lighter offence than that. But
then he never will do anything of the kind; for I keep him in too
good order for that.”
“Are you sure you don’t arrogate too much of the credit to yourself.
Lord Lowborough was quite as remarkable for his abstemiousness for some
time before you married him, as he is now, I have heard.”
“Oh, about the wine you mean—yes, he’s safe enough for that. And as
to looking askance to another woman, he’s safe enough for that too,
while I live, for he worships the very ground I tread on.”
“Indeed! and are you sure you deserve it?”
“Why, as to that, I can’t say: you know we’re all fallible creatures,
Helen; we none of us deserve to be worshipped. But are you sure your
darling Huntingdon deserves all the love you give to him?”
I knew not what to answer to this. I was burning with anger; but I
suppressed all outward manifestations of it, and only bit my lip and
pretended to arrange my work.
“At any rate,” resumed she, pursuing her advantage, “you can console
yourself with the assurance that you are worthy of all the love he
gives to you.”
“You flatter me,” said I; “but, at least, I can try to be worthy of
it.” And then I turned the conversation.
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Let's Analyse the Pattern
People excuse in themselves what they would never accept from others, using their position or desires to justify selective moral blindness.
Why This Matters
Connect literature to life
This chapter teaches how to distinguish between real accountability and performative apologies that deflect responsibility.
Practice This Today
Next time someone apologizes, notice whether they acknowledge the impact on you or just minimize their actions—real apologies include changed behavior, not just changed words.
Now let's explore the literary elements.
Key Quotes & Analysis
"She saw me too, and confronted me with a look of hard defiance."
Context: When Helen catches Annabella allowing Arthur to kiss her hand
This moment reveals Annabella's true character - she's not embarrassed or apologetic about betraying Helen's marriage. The 'hard defiance' shows she feels entitled to Arthur's attention and sees Helen as competition rather than a wronged wife.
In Today's Words:
She looked me straight in the eye like 'Yeah, so what? What are you going to do about it?'
"Well, I'm sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, but I see nothing so very criminal in a little harmless flirtation."
Context: When Helen confronts him about his behavior with Annabella
Arthur dismisses Helen's legitimate concerns by calling them 'delicate sensibilities' and minimizing his betrayal as 'harmless.' This is classic manipulation - making the wronged person feel oversensitive for having normal reactions.
In Today's Words:
Sorry you're so sensitive, but it's not that big a deal - we were just having fun.
"How would you like it, Arthur, if I were to act the same part to another man?"
Context: When Helen challenges Arthur's double standard about fidelity
This is Helen's breakthrough moment - instead of just accepting Arthur's excuses, she forces him to examine his own hypocrisy. This simple question cuts through all his rationalizations and gets to the heart of the matter.
In Today's Words:
How would you feel if I was flirting with some other guy the way you're flirting with her?
"I should kill him, that's all! And you too."
Context: Arthur's response to Helen's question about role reversal
Arthur's violent reaction proves he knows exactly how serious his behavior is - he just thinks different rules apply to him. His threat reveals both his possessiveness and his complete lack of self-awareness about his hypocrisy.
In Today's Words:
I'd lose my mind and probably hurt both of you.
Thematic Threads
Power
In This Chapter
Arthur uses his social position and gender to dismiss Helen's legitimate concerns about his behavior
Development
Building from earlier chapters where his privilege allowed him to court and marry Helen despite his flaws
In Your Life:
You might see this when someone uses their authority at work to avoid accountability for behavior they'd punish in subordinates
Personal Growth
In This Chapter
Helen develops the courage to confront Arthur directly and refuse to be dismissed or deflected
Development
Evolved from the naive young woman who married Arthur—she's learning to stand her ground
In Your Life:
You might recognize this in your own journey from accepting poor treatment to finally speaking up for yourself
Social Expectations
In This Chapter
Arthur expects Helen to silently accept his flirtations because that's what wives of his class traditionally did
Development
Continuing theme of how social norms can trap people in unhealthy dynamics
In Your Life:
You might feel this pressure when family or culture expects you to tolerate disrespect to keep the peace
Human Relationships
In This Chapter
The chapter shows how trust erodes when one person makes excuses while the other seeks honest communication
Development
Building on earlier relationship dynamics, now showing the cost of dishonesty
In Your Life:
You might see this pattern in relationships where one person deflects every serious conversation
Identity
In This Chapter
Helen discovers her own strength and refuses to be the compliant wife Arthur expects
Development
Her identity is shifting from dependent wife to independent moral agent
In Your Life:
You might experience this when you realize you've been playing a role that doesn't fit who you really are
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
- 1
When Helen confronts Arthur about flirting with Lady Lowborough, he uses several tactics to avoid taking responsibility. What are they, and why doesn't Helen fall for them?
analysis • surface - 2
Arthur admits he would 'blow the man's brains out' if Helen behaved the same way with another man. What does this reveal about his understanding of his own actions?
analysis • medium - 3
Think about your workplace, family, or social circles. Where have you seen people excuse in themselves what they would never tolerate from others?
application • medium - 4
Helen uses the 'reversal question' strategy—asking Arthur how he'd feel if the situation were flipped. When might this technique work in your own conflicts, and when might it backfire?
application • deep - 5
Helen forgives Arthur but stays watchful rather than trusting his promises completely. What does this teach us about the difference between forgiveness and foolishness?
reflection • deep
Critical Thinking Exercise
Test Your Own Double Standards
Think of a recent conflict or frustration you had with someone else's behavior. Write down exactly what they did that bothered you. Now flip it: have you ever done something similar to someone else? Be honest—we all have blind spots about our own behavior. The goal isn't self-punishment, but self-awareness.
Consider:
- •Consider the context and pressures you were under when you behaved similarly
- •Think about whether you made excuses for yourself that you wouldn't accept from others
- •Notice if you're being harder on yourself than necessary—the goal is insight, not shame
Journaling Prompt
Write about a time when someone called out your double standard. How did you react initially, and what did you learn from the experience? How might you handle similar feedback differently now?
Coming Up Next...
Chapter 28: When Promises Break: A Marriage Unraveling
Time jumps forward to Christmas, where Helen reflects on how dramatically her life has changed from hopeful bride to wary wife. Now she has become a mother, bringing new purpose and strength to her increasingly difficult marriage.
