In a character such as Mutimer's there will almost certainly be found a disposition to cruelty, for strong instincts of domination, even of the nobler kind, only wait for circumstances to develop crude tyranny--the cruder, of course, in proportion to the lack of native or acquired refinement which distinguishes the man.

We had a hint of such things in Mutimer's progressive feeling with regard to Emma Vine.

The possibility of his becoming a tyrannous husband could not be doubted by any one who viewed him closely.
There needed only the occasion, and this at length presented itself in the form of jealousy.

Of all possible incentives it was the one most calamitous, for it came just when a slow and secret growth of passion was making demand for room and air.

Mutimer had for some time been at a loss to understand his own sensations; he knew that his wife was becoming more and more a necessity to him, and that too when the progress of time would have led him to expect the very opposite.