She knew that she had taken every opportunity to get back at him, remind him of his indiscretion, to throw it up in his face on occasions when it was most wounding to him. She knew that the misery, the unhappiness of their co-existence, because it couldn't be called a marriage in the usual sense of the word, was mostly her doing, and yet, nothing would erase the jarring, searing memory of that dreadful time last year. She hadn't waited to verify her discovery, find out how long his involvement had been going on, or how serious it was. She had confronted him immediately, threatened divorce, court action, instant ignominy, and had relented only after weeks of ceaseless apologies, declarations of future fidelity and sworn avowals of love by her distraught husband. In a way, she had to admit to herself, she had enjoyed his obvious distress at her threat to leave, and had basked in his repeated statements that "he couldn't live without her." But the satisfaction she gained from the knowledge that he couldn't do without her was short-lived, and her ego had suffered too bruising a blow for her to maintain for long her role of sweet, forgiving but slightly-martyred wife. So her veiled recrimination had begun, and had gradually become more open and venomous, culminating in her accusations of today.

But she couldn't fool herself into thinking which she knew in her heart were unjustified, that her misery and discontent sprang completely from her husband's behavior. Even in her present misery, she was forced to admit that her unhappiness was accentuated by underlying discontent with her whole life. She had never dreamed when she had got engaged to the up and coming junior executive in the largest New England textile firm, that they would end up in the heart of New Hampshire farmland. She and Mike had such a good time in Boston, their first apartment, actually a tiny terraced house, their fast little sports car, their young, happy-go-lucky friends.