W. Somerset Maugham

“ It pleased him a thousand times more to devise this torture for you and me.”
Margaret’s agitation was terrible to behold. This was the first time that she had ever spoken to a soul of all these things, and now the long restraint had burst as burst the waters of a dam. Arthur sought to calm her.
“You’re ill and overwrought. You must try to compose yourself. After all Haddo is a human being like the rest of us.” ”

“ Susie said she hoped I’d suffer all the agony that I’ve made you suffer. If she only knew!”
Margaret gave a hysterical laugh. She flung herself on her knees by Arthur’s side and seized his hands.
“Did she think I didn’t see? My heart bled when I looked at your poor wan face and your tortured eyes. Oh, you’ve changed. I could never have believed that a man could change so much in so few months, and it’s I who’ve caused it all. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, you must forgive me. And you must pity me.” ”

“ I have only pity for her great misfortunes.”
“Has it occurred to you what will happen when she is back in Haddo’s hands?” cried Arthur. “You know as well as I do how revengeful he is and how hatefully cruel. My heart bleeds when I think of the tortures, sheer physical tortures, which she may suffer.”
He walked up and down in desperation.
“And yet there’s nothing whatever that one can do. One can’t go to the police and say that a man has cast a magic spell on his wife.”
“Then you believe it too?” said Susie. ”

“ The only chance is to fight him with his own weapons. Would you mind if I went over to Paris to consult Dr. Porhoët? You know that he is learned in every branch of the occult, and perhaps he might help us.”
But Arthur pulled himself together.
“It’s absurd. We mustn’t give way to superstition. Haddo is merely a scoundrel and a charlatan. He’s worked on our nerves as he’s worked on poor Margaret’s. It’s impossible to suppose that he has any powers greater than the common run of mankind.”
“Even after all you’ve seen with your own eyes?” ”

“ Susie gave Arthur Burdon the note which she had found in Margaret’s room. He read it and then thought for a long time.
“I’m afraid she’s right,” he said at length. “It seems quite hopeless. The man has some power over her which we can’t counteract.”
Susie wondered whether his strong scepticism was failing at last. She could not withstand her own feeling that there was something preternatural about the hold that Oliver had over Margaret. ”

“ Margaret acquiesced in all that was suggested to her and agreed willingly that the needful steps should be taken to procure her release from Oliver Haddo. He made apparently no effort to trace her, and nothing had been heard of him. He did not know where Margaret was, but he might have guessed that Arthur was responsible for her flight, and Arthur was easily to be found. It made Susie vaguely uneasy that there was no sign of his existence. She wished that Arthur were not kept by his work in London. ”

“ He used to spend long periods away from me, and I remained alone at Skene from morning till night, alone with my abject fear. Sometimes it seemed that he was seized with a devouring lust for the gutter, and he would go to Liverpool or Manchester and throw himself among the very dregs of the people. He used to pass long days, drinking in filthy pot-houses. ”

“ Sometimes I think I shall go mad with the terror of it all.”
Arthur did not speak. Her words caused a ghastly suspicion to flash through his mind, and he could hardly contain himself. He thought that some dreadful shock had turned her brain. She buried her face in her hands.
“Look here,” he said, “you must come away at once. You can’t continue to live with him. You must never go back to Skene.”
“I can’t leave him. We’re bound together inseparably.”
“But it’s monstrous. There can be nothing to keep you to him. Come back to Susie. She’ll be very kind to you ”