What a wicked woman you must be!" The words were said, not fiercely or resentfully, but in a sort of meditative, passive despair.

A sense of the wickedness, the cruelty there was in the world, the hopelessness of struggling against it, of disentangling fact from falsehood, of silencing malice and disarming envy, came upon Christian in a fit of bitterness uncontrollable.

She felt as if she could cry out, like David, "The waters have overwhelmed me, the deep waters have gone over my soul." Even if she were not blameless--who is blameless in this mortal Life ?-- even if she had made a mistake--a great mistake--her punishment was sharp.

Just now, when happiness was dawning upon her, when the remorse for her hasty marriage and lack of love toward her husband had died away, when her heart was beginning to leap at the sound of his step, and her whole soul to sun itself in the tender light of his loving eyes, it was very, very hard! "Well, Mrs.Grey, and what have you to say for yourself ?" Christian looked up instinctively--lifted her passive hands, and folded them on her lap, but answered nothing.
"You must see," continued Miss Gascoigne, "what an exceedingly unpleasant story it is, and how necessary it was for me to speak about it.

Such a matter easily might become the whole town's talk.