The Well of Loneliness

There came days when they purposely avoided each other, trying to find peace in separation. Stephen would go for long rides alone, leaving Mary to idle about the villa; and when she got back Mary would not speak, but would wander away by herself to the garden. For Stephen had grown almost harsh at times, possessed as she now was by something like terror, since it seemed to her that what she must say to this creature she loved would come as a deathblow, that all youth and all joy would be slain in Mary.

Tormented in body and mind and spirit, she would push the girl away from her roughly: "Leave me alone, I can't bear any more!"