At the Bay

Well, she was married to him. And what was more she loved him. Not the Stanley whom everyone saw, not the everyday one; but a timid, sensitive, innocent Stanley who knelt down every night to say his prayers, and who longed to be good. Stanley was simple. If he believed in people­ as he believed in her, for instance ­it was with his whole heart. He could not be disloyal; he could not tell a lie. And how terribly he suffered if he thought anyone ­she­ was not being dead straight, dead sincere with him! "This is too subtle for me!" He flung out the words, but his open quivering, distraught look was like the look of a trapped beast.