posite to me while I write these lines?

"My gun is there in the corner. I have only to tie a string to the
trigger and to put the muzzle to my mouth--No! My mother is alive; my
mother's love is sacred. I have no right to take the life which she gave
me. I must suffer and submit. Oh, Helena! Helena!"

The third extract--one among many similar passages--had been written
about two months before the death of the prisoner's wife.

"More reproaches addressed to me! There never was such a woman for
complaining; she lives in a perfect atmosphere of ill-temper and
discontent.

"My new offenses are two in number: I never ask her to play to me now;
and when she puts on a new dress expressly to please me, I never notice
it. Notice it! Good Heavens! The effort of my life is _not_ to notice
her in anything she does or says. How could I keep my temper, unless I
kept as much as possible out of the way of private interviews with
her? And I do keep my temper. I am never hard on her; I never use harsh
language to her. She has a double claim on my forbearance---she is
a woman, and the law has made her my wife. I remember this; but I am
human. The less I see of her--except when visitors are present--the
more certain I can feel of preserving my self-control.

"I wonder what it is that makes her so utterly distasteful to me? She
is a plain woman; but I have seen uglier women than she whose caresses
I could have endured without the sense of shrinking that comes over me
when I am obliged to submit to _her_ caresses. I keep the feeling hidden
from her. She loves me, poor thing--and I pity her. I wish I could do
more; I wish I could return in the smallest degree the feeling with
which she regards me. But no--I can only pity her. If she would
be content to live on friendly terms with me, and never to exact
demonstrations of tenderness, we might get on pretty well. But she wants
love. Unfortunate creature, she wants love!

"Oh, my Helena! I have no love to give her. My heart is yours.

"I dreamed last night that this unhappy wife of mine was dead. The dream
was so vivid that I actually got out of my bed and opened the door of
her room and listened.

"Her calm, regular breathing was distinctly audible in the stillness of
the night. She was in a deep sleep: I closed the door again and lighted
my candle and read. Helena was in all my thoughts; it was hard work to
fix my attention on the book. But anything was better than going to bed
again,