In the morning she had regretted that she had spoken to her
husband, and wished for nothing so much as that those words could
be unspoken. And here this letter regarded them as unspoken, and
gave her what she had wanted. But now this letter seemed to her
more awful than anything she had been able to conceive.

"He's right!" she said; "of course, he's always right; he's a
Christian, he's generous! Yes, vile, base creature! And no one
understands it except me, and no one ever will; and I can't
explain it. They say he's so religious, so high-principled, so
upright, so clever; but they don't see what I've seen. They
don't know how he has crushed my life for eight years, crushed
everything that was living in me--he has not once even thought
that I'm a live woman who must have love. They don't know how at
every step he's humiliated me, and been just as pleased with
himself. Haven't I striven, striven with all my strength, to
find something to give meaning to my life? Haven't I struggled
to love him, to love my son when I could not love my husband?
But the time came when I knew that I couldn't cheat myself any
longer, that I was alive, that I was not to blame, that God has
made me so that I must love and live. And now what does he do?
If he'd killed me, if he'd killed him, I could have borne
anything, I could have forgiven anything; but, no, he.... How
was it I didn't guess what he would do? He's doing just what's
characteristic of his mean character. He'll keep himself in the
right, while me, in my ruin, he'll drive still lower to worse
ruin yet..."