r these circumstances; for the
least of the mistakes that I should make, if I did so, is that I would
be fully justified. I will not now, even if I could, indulge either in
wrath or resentment. It is not I who have been outraged; for I have
too much heart to be frightened by that public opinion which almost
always treats with ridicule and condemnation a husband whose wife has
misbehaved. When I examine my life, I see nothing there that makes
this treachery deserved by me, as it is deserved by many others. I
still love you. I have never been false, I will not say to my duty,
for I have found nothing onerous in adoring you, but not even to those
welcome obligations which sincere feeling imposes upon us both. You
have had all my confidence and you have also had the administration of
my fortune. I have refused you nothing. And now this is the first time
that I have turned to you a face, I will not say stern, but which is
yet reproachful. But let us drop this subject, for it is of no use for
me to defend myself at a moment when you have proved to me with such
energy that there is something lacking in me, and that I am not
intended by nature to accomplish the difficult task of rendering you
happy. But I would ask you, as a friend speaking to a friend, how
could you have the heart to imperil at the same time the lives of
three human creatures: that of the mother of my children, who will
always be sacred to me; that of the head of the family; and finally of
him--who loves--[she perhaps at these words will throw herself at your
feet; you must not permit her to do so; she is unworthy of kneeling
there]. For you no longer love me, Eliza. Well, my poor child [you
must not call her _my poor child_ excepting when the crime has not
been committed]--why deceive ourselves? Why do you not answer me? If
love is extinguished between a married couple, cannot friendship and
confidence still survive? Are we not two companions united in making
the same journey? Can it be said that during the journey the one must
never hold out his hand to the other to raise up a comrade or to
prevent a comrade's fall? But I have perhaps said too much and I am
wounding your pride--Eliza! Eliza!"

Now what the deuce would you expect a woman to answer? Why a
catastrophe naturally follows, without a single word.

In a hundred women there may be found at least a good half dozen of
feeble creatures who under this violent shock return to their husbands
never perhap