erefore, I sent you away.
There was no question then of giving you, or not giving you, a chance to
prove yourself worthy. I was not concerned just then with what you might
eventually prove yourself. I did not love you; therefore, I could not
wed you. Though, as a side issue, it is only fair to point out--if you
wish to stand upon your possible merits--that this letter, written four
years later, confirms my then estimate of your true character.

"Aubrey, I cannot discuss my husband with you; nor can I bring myself to
allude to the subject of my relations with him, or his with me.

"To defend him to you would be to degrade him in all honest eyes.

"To enlarge upon my love for him, would be like pouring crystal water
into a stagnant polluted pool, in order to prove how pure was the
fountain from which that water flowed. Nothing could be gained by such
a proceeding. Pouring samples of its purity into the tainted waters of
the pool, would neither prove the former, nor cleanse the latter.

"But, in order to free my own mind from the poison of your suggestions
and the shame of the fact that they were made to me, I must answer, in
the abstract, one statement in your letter. Please understand that I
answer it completely in the abstract. You have dared to apply it to my
husband and to me. I do not admit that it applies. But, even if it did,
I should not let it pass unchallenged. I break a lance with you, Aubrey
Treherne, and with all men of your way of thinking, on behalf of every
true wife and mother in Christendom!

"You say, that if a man has disappointed his wife, she has a right to
leave him; the fact of that disappointment sets her free?

"I say to you, in answer: when a woman loves a man enough to wed him, he
becomes to her as her life--her very self.

"I often fail, and fall, and disappoint myself. I do not thereupon
immediately feel free to commit suicide. I face my failure, resolve to
do better, and take up my life again, as bravely as may be, on higher
lines.

"If a woman leaves her husband she commits moral suicide. By virtue of
his union with her, he is as her own self. If disappointment and
disillusion come to her through him, she must face them as she does when
they come through herself. She must be patient, faithful, understanding,
tender; helping him, as she would help herself, to start afresh on
higher ground; once more, with a holy courage, facing life bravely.

"This is my answer--every true woman's a