ake in judging her husband, in that she regarded him,
at thirty-two, as a finished product, a man who was finally this and
that, and behaved thus and so, and would never be any different.

The "age of discretion" is a movable feast of extraordinary uncertainty,
and John Hathaway was a little behindhand in overtaking it. As a matter
of fact, he had never for an instant looked life squarely in the face.
He took a casual glance at it now and then, after he was married, but it
presented no very distinguishable features, nothing to make him stop
and think, nothing to arouse in him any special sense of responsibility.
Boys have a way of "growing up," however, sooner or later, at least
most of them have, and that possibility was not sufficiently in the
foreground of Susanna's mind when she finished what she considered an
exhaustive study of her husband's character.

I am leaving you, John [she wrote], to see if I can keep the little love
I have left for you as the father of my children. I seem to have lost
all the rest of it living with you. I am not perfectly sure that I
am right in going, for everybody seems to think that women, mothers
especially, should bear anything rather than desert the home. I could
not take Jack away, for you love him and he will be a comfort to you. A
comfort to you, yes, but what will you be to him now that he is growing
older? That is the thought that troubles me, yet I dare not take him
with me when he is half yours. You will not miss me, nor will the loss
of Sue make any difference. Oh, John! how can you help loving that
blessed little creature, so much better and so much more gifted than
either of us that we can only wonder how we came to be her father and
mother? Your sin against her is greater than that against me, for at
least you are not responsible for bringing me into the world. I know
Louisa will take care of Jack, and she lives so near that you can see
him as often as you wish. I shall let her know my address, which I have
asked her to keep to herself. She will write to me if you or Jack should
be seriously ill, but not for any other reason.

As for you, there is nothing more that I can say except to confess
freely that I was not the right wife for you and that mine was not the
only mistake. I have tried my very best to meet you in everything that
was not absolutely wrong, and I have used all the arguments I could
think of, but it only made matters worse. I thought I knew you, John,
in