Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it immediately, as I should have wished to do. For that reason I sent you the brief telegram in reply, the words of which, I am sorry to say, I must now repeat: "I know nothing about the matter." Lillie has never spoken a word to me, or made the least allusion in my presence, which could cause me to suspect such a thing. I think I can truly say that I never heard her pronounce the name of Director Schlegel.
My first idea was that my cousin had gone out of her mind, and I was astonished that you—being a medical man—should not have come to the same conclusion. But on mature consideration (I have thought of nothing but Lillie for the last two days) I have changed my opinion. I think I am beginning to understand what has happened, but I beg you to remember that I alone am responsible for what I am going to say. I am only dealing with suppositions, nothing more.
Lillie has not broken her marriage vows. Any suspicion of betrayal is impossible, having regard to her upright and loyal nature. If to you, and to everybody else, she appeared to be perfectly happy in her married life, it was because she really was so. I implore you to believe this.
Lillie, who never told even a conventional falsehood, who watched over her children like an old-fashioned mother, careful of what they read and what plays they saw, how could she have carried on, unknown to you and to them, an intrigue with another man? Impossible, impossible, dear Professor! I do not say that your ears played you false as to the words she spoke, but you must have put a wrong interpretation upon them.
Not once, but thousands of times, Lillie has spoken to me about you. She loved and honoured you. You were her ideal as man, husband, and father. She was proud of you. Having no personal vanity or ambition, like so many good women, her pride and hopes were all centred in you.
She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your operations; and I need hardly remind you how carefully she followed your work. She studied Latin in order to understand your scientific books, while, in spite of her natural repulsion from the sight of such things, she attended your anatomy classes and demonstrations.
When Lillie said, "I love Schlegel, and have loved him for years," her words did not mean "And all that time my love for you was extinct."
No, Lillie cared for Schlegel and for you too. The whole question is so simple, and at the same time so complicated.