'Then I like to stay,' said Godfrey, with a reckless
determination to get as much of this joy as he could tonight, and
think nothing of the morrow.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHILE Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of forgetfulness from the sweet
presence of Nancy, willingly losing all sense of that hidden bond
which at other moments galled and fretted him so as to mingle
irritation with the very sunshine, Godfrey's wife was walking with
slow uncertain steps through the snow-covered Raveloe lanes,
carrying her child in her arms.
This journey on New Year's Eve was a premeditated act of
vengeance which she had kept in her heart ever since Godfrey, in a fit
of passion, had told her he would sooner die than acknowledge her as
his wife. There would be a great party at the Red House on New
Year's Eve, she knew: her husband would be smiling and smiled upon,
hiding her existence in the darkest corner of his heart. But she would
mar his pleasure: she would go in her dingy rags, with her faded face,
once as handsome as the best, with her little child that had its
father's hair and eyes, and disclose herself to the Squire as his
eldest son's wife. It is seldom that the miserable can help
regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less
miserable. Molly knew that the cause of her dingy rags was not her
husband's neglect, but the demon Opium to whom she was enslaved,
body and soul, except in the lingering mother's tenderness that
refused to give him her hungry child.
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