emember
the way in which she treated my poor husband before we were married. It
was she who made all the quarrel, you know. It broke up my life at the
very beginning, and we two sisters never saw each other again. I do not
know what would have become of me if my husband had not loved me as he
did. He was so kind to me, always, and he sympathized in all my feelings
and ideas. If he had only lived, how different it might all have been!"

Hermione thought so, too; reflecting that if Paul's father had been
alive during the time when he was growing up, the unfortunate boy would
have been spared a vast deal of suffering, and Madame Patoff would
perhaps have been held in check. Her character was not of the kind which
could safely be left to its own development, for she called her caprices
justice and her obstinacy principle, a mode of viewing life not
conducive to much permanent satisfaction when not modified by the
salutary restraint of a more sensible companion. But Hermione was glad
that her aunt was willing to talk of anything except Paul, and
encouraged her to continue, though she had heard again and again Madame
Patoff's account of her own life and of the family quarrels. By
carefully listening and watching her, it was possible to keep her from
reaching the point at which Hermione was always obliged to protest that
she would not hear more.

It may be judged from this scene that the young girl's position was not
an easy one. She was beginning to feel that Madame Patoff's hatred for
Paul approached in reality much nearer to insanity than the affected
apathy she had assumed before Hermione discovered the imposition; but,
nevertheless, the young girl felt that, sane or not sane, she could
allow no one to cast a slur on the name of the man she loved. She was
glad, indeed, that Madame Patoff did not make her hatred and her
suspicion topics for conversation with the rest of the family, and she
was willing to suffer much in order that her aunt might confide in her
alone, and behave herself with propriety and dignity before the others.
But when Madame Patoff overstepped the limits Hermione had set for her,
the old lady invariably found herself checked and even frightened by the
authoritative manner of her niece. The anxiety, however, and the
constant annoyance to which she was subjected, together with the sorrow
of the separation from Paul, had told upon the girl's strength, and it
was no wonder that she had grown thinner during