“Well?”
“You never ask more of my friendship than I am willing to give.”
“Well?”
“You leave your wife altogether.”
He started and shook his head slowly.
“You don’t understand. Milly has—a weakness. Even now I have to be always watching.”
“I know more of your wife than you think,” she answered. “I know the circumstances of your marriage, and something of her life since. My condition must stand.”
“Do you know,” he said, “that it would mean ruin to her—body and soul?”
“She is not fit to be your wife,” Lady Malingcourt said coldly. “You can never make her fit. I think that you would be justified in ignoring her claim upon you. There are limits to one’s responsibility.”
“These,” he said, “are your conditions?”