His thoughts in regard to Mavis were extraordinarily complicated. At first he had been horribly afraid of her--dreading their meeting as a crisis, a turning-point, an awful bit of touch-and-go work. It seemed that she of all people would be the one to suspect the truth. When she heard of the man's death, surely the idea must have flashed into her mind: "This is Will's doing." But then perhaps, when no facts appeared to support the idea, she might have abandoned it. Nevertheless it would readily come flashing back again--and again, and again.
To his delight, however, he saw that she did not suspect now, and there was nothing to show that she ever had suspected. And he thought in the midst of his great relief: "How stupid she is really. Any other woman would have put two and two together. But she is a stupid woman. Stupidity is the key-note to her character--and it furnishes the explanation of half her wrong-doing."
This reflection was comforting, but he still considered her to be a source of terrible danger to him. For the moment at least, all his resentment about her past unchasteness and her recent escapade was entirely obliterated; it was a closed chapter; he did not seem to care two pence about it--that is, he did not feel any torment of jealousy. The offense was expiated. But he must not on any account let her see this--no, because it might lead her, stupid as she was, to trace the reason. He knew himself that if Mr. Barradine had died otherwise than by his blows, he would have felt quite differently toward Mavis. He would have felt then "The swine has escaped me. We are not quits. That dirty turn is not paid for." He would have continued to smart under the affront to his pride as a man, and association with Mavis would have still been impossible.
Logically, then, he must act out these other feelings; Mavis must see him as he would have been under those conditions. But it made it all so difficult--two parts to render adequately instead of one. In the monstrous egotism produced by his fear, he thought it uncommonly rough luck that the wife who ought to have been dutifully assisting him should thus add to his cares and worries. Sometimes he had to struggle against insane longings to take her into his confidence, and compel her to do her fair share of the job--to say, slap out, "It's you, my lady, who've landed me in this tight place; so the least you can do is to help pull me into open country."