Not once has it occurred to you to set your husband free. He belongs to you, he is in your power. You begin all over again. You haven’t an hour’s rest because you must spy on all his actions. You reproach him for being a Catholic. His baseness is trebled because he is Catholic—as if lies had anything to do with articles of faith.
You are leading a pretty life! Then your husband falls ill. For a long time he has complained of a tumour in his chest. “If it grows it’ll have to be removed for it may be cancer.” This is a trifling matter, or you inwardly triumph over it as “a judgment.”
One morning he leaves the house on business. He takes leave of you tenderly and comes back over and over again to kiss you with emotion. You at once suspect deceit, and heap reproaches on him for intending to do something behind your back. He smiles sadly and says, “If that is so you will soon hear what it is.”
At mid-day you have a “vision,” if what you write is true. You see him lying on the operating table. You telephone to the hospital and learn that the operation has taken place. You hurry there and meet the girl.
To you he has not spoken of the serious ordeal in store for him. But he has sent for her.
This is the last drop that overflows your cup of anguish. You take your sick husband home. You torture him till he says, “Death would be better than this.”
And now you ask me what you ought to do.
It would be much simpler to tell you what you ought not to have done.