ow that she is not the irresistible
woman. I found it out quite by accident--a few words dropped into a
letter, a corroboration of the fact and further committal, a protracted
defence of your position, running through a correspondence of over a
year, and, finally, a face-to-face declaration. What boots it now that
you write prettily? You do not love Hester. You want her to mother your
children, and you install her in your life for the purpose before the
need.

Love is not lust, and it is good. The irresistible marriage, alone, is
the right one. Upon it, alone, does the sacrament rest. The chivalry of
your last letter refers less to the girl than to your own ends. It is
not because Hester is what she is, that "of all the walks in life that
one is pleasantest wherein you may walk with her," but because that walk
is the one you choose beyond any other for your wife to follow. The
mother woman is legion, and you refuse to specialise.

Hester does not peer down at the scales to see if she is getting full
value, yet she does look to her dignity, and, being poor, will not
account herself rich. Hester has felt since you made known to her that
you wished her to be yours, that she counted punily in your scheme, that
you placed little of yourself in charge of her. She loved you and avowed
it, but she has never been happy. The tragedy of love is not (what it is
thought to be) the unreciprocated love, but the meagerly returned love.
It is better to be rejected, equal turned from equal, than to be held
with slim desire for slight purpose. Can you see this, Herbert? You are
hurting the girl's life. She will ask for what you withhold, though not
a word rise to her lips; will thirst for it through the years, will
herself grow cramped with your denial till her own love seem a thing of
dream, unstable and vague and illusive. And all the time you are gentle.
You are devoted to her interests, furthering her happiness to the best
in your power; but your power cannot touch her happiness. It is not what
you do; it is the motive to your acts, and Hester would know that she
has left you unmoved. You respect the function of motherhood, but you do
not love Hester. Tell her this, and prevent her from entering a union in
which she must feel herself half useful, half wifely, half happy, and
therefore all unhappy.

It is not Hester's fault that you cannot love her, and perhaps it is not
her misfortune. There is no need for panic. Of two persons, one