h Lillie, would he have been contented
with a few words and an occasional pressure of her hand? Therefore,
since it is out of the question that your wife can have been unfaithful
to you, I am inclined to think that Schlegel knew nothing of her
feelings for him.

You will reply that in that case it must all be gross exaggeration on
Lillie's part. But you, being a man, cannot understand how little
satisfies a woman when her love is great enough.

Why, then, has Lillie left you, and why does she refuse to give you an
explanation? Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions?

I will tell you: Lillie is in love with two men at the same time. Their
different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character.
If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby
losing all his faculties, Lillie would have remained with you and
continued to be a model wife and mother. In the same way, had you been
the victim of the accident, she would have clean forgotten Schlegel, and
would have lived and breathed for you alone.

But fate decreed that the misfortune should be his.

Lillie had not sufficient strength to fight the first, sharp anguish.
She was bewildered by the shock, and felt herself suddenly in a false
position. The love on which her imagination had been feeding seemed to
her at the moment the true one. She felt she was betraying you,
Schlegel, and herself; and since self-sacrifice has become the law of
her existence, she was prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her
love.

As to you, Professor Rothe, you have acted very foolishly. You have
done just what any average, conventional man would have done. Your
injured vanity silenced the voice of your heart.

You had the choice of two alternatives: either Lillie was mad, or she
was responsible for her actions. You were convinced that she was quite
sane and was playing you false in cold blood. She wished to leave you;
then let her go. What becomes of her is nothing to you; you wash your
hands of her henceforth.

You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your
confidence. How could you have found it in your heart to do this,
instead of putting them off with any explanation rather than the true
one!

Lillie knew you better than I supposed. She knew that behind your
apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature. She
understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your
ho