s, or fears, or wicked dreams. Sometimes I wish I could
dream of Christopher; but I never do, I never dream of anything. I
suppose I should be grateful for that and glad that my cure is so
complete. Oh, dear!

* * * * *

I wear myself out at the dispensary for poor French children and try my
best to smile and be cheerful and to interest myself in their pitiful
needs and sorrows; but my heart is not in this work and my smiles are
forced. Many nights I cry myself to sleep.

And yet I did right. I go over it all in my mind and I see that I did
right. There was nothing else for me to do. I had to decide for both of
us, and I decided. I thought of those dreadful things that I did,
and--meant to do--those things that neither Christopher nor I can
possibly forget ... how could Christopher ever have confidence in me as
his wife? How could we ever be happy together with those memories
between us?

* * * * *

I try to remember the exact words that I wrote to my lover that morning
when I went away. I hope I did not make him suffer too much. But of
course he suffered--he must have. I told him we could not see each other
any more, or write to each other, or--anything. I knew I would have been
too weak to resist the call of my love and he would have been too fine,
too chivalrous, to let me go. He would have said: "You are cured now,
dear" (which I really am) "and there is no reason why we should not be
married--" which is true, except that he would always have had the fear,
deep down in his heart, that I might relapse into what I had been. How
could a high-minded man like Chris bear the thought that the woman he
loved, the woman who was to be the mother of his children, had acted
like a wanton? He could not bear it. It is evident that I did right.

_And yet--_

* * * * *

I often wonder what another woman would have done in my place. She loves
a man as I loved Christopher--as I love him still. She is proud, she has
always been admired, she cannot bear the thought of being pitied. And
suddenly she learns that she has disgraced herself, she has violated the
sacred traditions of modesty that restrain all women. She has acted like
an abandoned woman towards the man she worships. God! It is true she has
done this without knowing it, without being responsible for it, but she
has done it, and that ineffaceable memory will always shame her,