A weight slipped away from her heart and brain.

It was as though one in armour awaited the impact of a heavy, cruel, overwhelming foe, who suddenly disappeared, and the armour fell from the shoulders, and breath came easily once again.
"Would you mind ?" he repeated drily, as he folded up the letter slowly.
He handed it back to her, the note of sarcasm in his voice pricking her like the point of a dagger.

She felt angered with herself that he could rouse her temper by such small mean irony.

She had a sense of bitter disappointment in him--or was it a deep hurt ?--that she had not made him love her, truly love her.

If he had only meant the love that he swore before they had married! Why had he deceived her?
It had all been in his hands, her fate and future; but almost before the bridal flowers had faded, she had come to know two bitter things: that he had married with a sordid mind; that he was incapable of the love which transmutes the half-comprehending, half-developed affection of the maid into the absorbing, understanding, beautiful passion of the woman.