be a grief to see her injured by this passionate
and unhappy man.

* * * * *

"You have said that you wanted all details I could give; so I
feel bound to say, that Dr. Zabriskie tries to be considerate
of his wife, though he often fails in the attempt. When she
offers herself as his guide, or assists him with his mail, or
performs any of the many acts of kindness by which she
continually manifests her sense of his affliction, he thanks
her with courtesy and often with kindness, yet I know she
would willingly exchange all his set phrases for one fond
embrace or impulsive smile of affection. That he is not in the
full possession of his faculties would be too much to say, and
yet upon what other hypothesis can we account for the
inconsistencies of his conduct.

* * * * *

"I have before me two visions of mental suffering. At noon I
passed the office door, and looking within, saw the figure of
Dr. Zabriskie seated in his great chair, lost in thought or
deep in those memories which make an abyss in one's
consciousness. His hands, which were clenched, rested upon the
arms of his chair, and in one of them I detected a woman's
glove, which I had no difficulty in recognizing as one of the
pair worn by his wife this morning. He held it as a tiger
might hold his prey or a miser his gold, but his set features
and sightless eyes betrayed that a conflict of emotions was
waging within him, among which tenderness had but little
share.

"Though alive, as he usually is, to every sound, he was too
absorbed at this moment to notice my presence though I had
taken no pains to approach quietly. I therefore stood for a
full minute watching him, till an irresistible sense of the
shame of thus spying upon a blind man in his moments of
secret anguish seized upon me and I turned away. But not
before I saw his features relax in a storm of passionate
feeling, as he rained kisses after kisses on the senseless kid
he had so long held in his motionless grasp. Yet when an hour
later he entered the dining-room on his wife's arm, there was
nothing in his manner to show that he had in any way changed
in his attitude towards her.

* * * * *

"The other p