The Yellow Book/Volume 5/The Haseltons

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The Bride

The Yellow Book, Volume 5

The Haseltons by Hubert Crackanthorpe

Two Songs

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2614001The Yellow Book, Volume 5 — The HaseltonsHubert Crackanthorpe

The Haseltons

By Hubert Crackanthorpe

I

She sat in a corner of a large London drawing-room, and the two men stood before her—Hillier Haselton, her husband, and George Swann, her husband's cousin; and, beyond them, the mellow light of shaded candles, vague groupings of black coats, white shirt-fronts, and gay-tinted dresses, and the noisy hum of conversation.

The subject that the two men were discussing—and more especially Swann's blunt earnestness—stirred her, though through out it she had been unpleasantly conscious of a smallness, almost a pettiness, in Hillier's aspect.

"Well, but why not, my dear Swann? Why not be unjust: man's been unjust to woman for so many years."

Ten minutes later Hillier came in from his dressing-room. He clasped his hands round her bare neck, kissing her hair again and again.

"I have been punished, Nellie," he began in a broken whisper. "Good God! it is hard to bear. . . . Help me, Nellie, . . . help me to bear it."

She unclasped his fingers, and started to stroke them; a little mechanically, as if it were her duty to ease him of his pain. . . .

The Yellow Book/Volume 5/The Haseltons

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