live
with me here, and I shall do my best to console her for the loss of an
ungrateful husband and a pack of stupid, indifferent children.

One word more before I finish my letter. Lillie, as far as I can
recollect, is a year older than I am. Could you not--woman's specialist
as you are--have found some explanation in this fact? Had Lillie been
fifty-five or thirty-five, all this would never have happened. I do not
care for strangers to look into my personal affairs, and although you
are my cousin's husband you are practically a stranger to me.
Nevertheless I may remind you that women at our time of life pass
through critical moments, as I know by my daily experiences. The letter
which I have written to you in a cool reasoning spirit might have been
impossible a week or two ago. I should probably have reeled off pages of
incoherent abuse.

Show Lillie that your pretended love was not selfishness pure and
simple.

With kind greetings,
Yours sincerely,
ELSIE LINDTNER.

P.S.--I would rather not answer your personal attacks. I could not have
acted differently and I regret nothing.

* * * * *

To-morrow morning I will get rid of that gardener without fail.

An extra month's wages and money for his journey--whatever is
necessary--so long as he goes.

I wish to sleep in peace and to feel sure that my house is safely locked
up, and I cannot sleep a wink so long as I know he comes to see Torp.

That my cook should have a man in does not shock me, but it annoys me.
It makes me think of things I wish to forget.

I seem to hear them laughing and giggling downstairs.

Madness! I could not really hear anything that was going on in the
basement. The birds were restless, because the night is too light to let
them sleep. The sea gleams under the silver dome of the moonlit sky.

What is that?... Ah! Miss Jeanne going towards the forest.

Her head looks like one of those beautiful red fungi that grow among the
fir-trees.

If the gardener had chosen _her_.... But Torp!

I should like to go wandering out into the woods and leave the house to
those two creatures in the basement. But if I happened to meet Jeanne,
what explanation could I give?

It would be too ridiculous for both of us to be straying about in the
forest, because Torp was entertaining a sweetheart in the basement!

Doors and windows are wide open, and they are two floors belo