jealous of the time spent away from her;
but because you believed such arduous brain work made him less ardent as
a lover. Although you did not really care for him, you would have
sacrificed all his fame and reputation for an hour of unreasoning
passion.

At his death you lost the breadwinner and the position you had gained
in the world as the wife of a celebrity. Your grief was sincere; you
felt your loneliness and loss. Then for the first time you clung to your
children, and erroneously believed you were moved by maternal feeling.
You honestly intended henceforward to live for them alone.

All went well for three months, and then the struggle began. Do you
know, Magna, I admired the way you fought. You would not give way an
inch. You wore the deepest weeds. Sheltered behind your crape, you
surrounded yourself by your children, and fought for your life.

This inward conflict added to your attractions. It gave you an air of
nobility you had hitherto lacked.

Then the world began to whisper evil about you while you were still
quite irreproachable.

No, after all there _was_ something to reproach you with, although it
was not known to outsiders. While you were fighting your instincts and
trying to live as a spotless widow, your character was undergoing a
change: against your will, but not unconsciously, you were become a
perfect fury. In this way your children acquired that timidity which
they have never quite outgrown. Strangers began to notice this after a
while, and to criticise your behaviour.

Time went on. You wrote that you were obliged to do a "cure" in a
nursing home for nervous complaints. When I heard this, I could not
repress a smile, in spite of your misfortunes. Nerve specialists may be
very clever, but can they be expected, even at the highest fees, to
replace defunct husbands. You were kept in bed and dosed with bromides
and sulphonal. After a few weeks you were pronounced quite well, and
left the home a little stouter and rather languid after keeping your bed
so long.

When you got home you turned the house upside-down in a frantic fit of
"cleaning." You walked for miles; you took to cooking; and at night,
having wearied your body out with incessant work, you tried to lull your
brain by reading novels.

What was the use of it all? The day you confessed to me that you had
walked about the streets all night lest you should kill yourself and
your children, I realised that your powers of resistance