They were, all three, in that ugly house, figures moving in the dark.Grace simply knew, as the months passed, that she disliked and feared Maggie more and more; Paul knew that as the months passed-well, what he knew will appear in the following pages.And Maggie?
She only knew that it needed all her endurance and stubborn will to force herself to accept this life as her life.She must-she must.To give way meant to run away, and to run away meant to long for what she could not have, and loneliness and defeat.She would make this into a success; she would care for Paul although she could not give him all that he needed.She would and she could...Every morning as she lay awake in the big double-bed with the brass knobs at the bed-foot winking at her in the early light she vowed that she would justify her acceptance of the man who lay sleeping so peacefully beside her.Poor child, her battle with Grace was to teach her how far her will and endurance could carry her...
Grace, on her side, was not a bad woman, she was simply a stupid one.She disliked Maggie for what seemed to her most admirable reasons and, as that dislike slowly, slowly turned into hatred, her self-justification only hardened.
Until that moment, when she saw a faded patch of wall-paper on the wall instead of her mother's portrait, she had no doubts whatever about the success of what she considered her choice.Maggie was a "dear," young, ignorant, helpless, but the very wife for Paul.Then slowly, slowly, the picture changed.Maggie was obstinate, Maggie was careless, Maggie was selfish, idle, lazy, irreligious-at last, Maggie was "queer."Then, when in the dusk of that summer evening, she saw Paul kiss Maggie, as the moths blundered about her lamp, her stolid unimaginative heart was terrified.This girl, who was she? What had she been before they found her? What was this strange passion in Paul isolating him from her, his sister? This girl was dangerous to them all-a heathen.They had made a terrible mistake.Paul had been from the first bewitched by some strange spell, and the, his sister, had aided the witch.