ing--when _she_ could see and
hear, my tongue was silent and she never knew. Aline! my Aline!

I married her when I was thirty-five and she eighteen. All the
world knows this; but what it does not know is that I loved
her--toy, plaything that she was--a body without a mind--(or, so I
considered her)--while she had but followed the wishes of her
relatives in giving her sweet youth to a cold and reticent man who
might love, indeed, but who had no power to tell that love, or even
to show it in the ways which women like, and which she liked, as I
found out when it was too late.

I could not help but love her. It was ingrained within me; a part
of the curse of my life to love this gentle, thoughtless, alluring
thing to which I had given my name. She had a smile--it did not
come often--which tore at my heart-strings as it welled up, just
stirring the dimples in her cheeks, and died away again in a
strange and moving sweetness. Though I reckoned her at her worth;
knew that her charm was all physical; that she neither did nor
could understand a passion like mine, much less return it, it was
none the less irresistible, and I have known myself to stand before
a certain book-shelf in the turn of the stairway for many minutes
together, because I knew that she would soon be coming down, and
that, when she did, some ribbon from her gown would flutter by me,
and I should feel the soft contact and go away happy to my books.
Yet, if she stopped to look back at me, I could only return her
look with one she doubtless called harsh, for she had not eyes to
see below the surface.

I tell you all this, lest you may not understand. She was not your
mother and you may begrudge me the affection I felt for her; if so,
thrust these leaves into the fire and seek not the explanation of
what has surprised you; for there is no word written here which
does not find its meaning in the intense love I bore for her, my
young girl-wife, and the tragedy which this love has brought into
my life. She was slight in body, slight in mind and of slight
feeling. I first discovered this last on the day I put my mother's
ring on her finger. She laughed as I fitted it close and kissed the
little hand. Not from embarrassment or childish impulse; I could
have understood that; but indifferent