comfort them.

Clemens sought no comfort for himself. Just as nearly forty years before
he had writhed in self-accusation for the death of his younger brother,
and as later he held himself to blame for the death of his infant son,
so now he crucified himself as the slayer of Susy. To Mrs. Clemens he
poured himself out in a letter in which he charged himself categorically
as being wholly and solely responsible for the tragedy, detailing step
by step with fearful reality his mistakes and weaknesses which had led
to their downfall, the separation from Susy, and this final incredible
disaster. Only a human being, he said, could have done these things.

Susy Clemens had died in the old Hartford home. She had been well for
a time at Quarry Farm, well and happy, but during the summer of '96
she had become restless, nervous, and unlike herself in many ways. Her
health seemed to be gradually failing, and she renewed the old interest
in mental science, always with the approval of her parents. Clemens had
great faith in mind over matter, and Mrs. Clemens also believed that
Susy's high-strung nature was especially calculated to receive benefit
from a serene and confident mental attitude. From Bombay, in January,
she wrote Mrs. Crane:

I am very glad indeed that Susy has taken up Mental Science, and I do
hope it may do her as much good as she hopes. Last winter we were so
very anxious to have her get hold of it, and even felt at one time that
we must go to America on purpose to have her have the treatment, so it
all seems very fortunate that it should have come about as it has this
winter.

Just how much or how little Susy was helped by this treatment cannot be
known. Like Stevenson, she had "a soul of flame in a body of gauze," a
body to be guarded through the spirit. She worked continuously at her
singing and undoubtedly overdid herself. Early in the year she went over
to Hartford to pay some good-by visit, remaining most of the time in the
home of Charles Dudley Warner, working hard at her singing. Her health
did not improve, and when Katie Leary went to Hartford to arrange for
their departure she was startled at the change in her.

"Miss Susy; you are sick," she said. "You must have the doctor come."

Susy refused at first, but she grew worse and the doctor was sent for.
He thought her case not very serious--the result, he said, of overwork.
He prescribed some soothing remedies, and advised that she be kept very
quiet, awa