MARY ADAMS
 
 Confessions of a 
 Wife
 
 "THE SECRETARY WAS READING DUTIFULLY."
 
 Confessions of a 
 Wife 
 
 By 
 
 Mary Adams 
 
 . 'f I 1 t ^ H 7 
 
 With Illustrations 
 by Granville Smith 
 
 New York 
 
 The Century Co. 
 
 1902
 
 Copyright, 1902, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Published October, iqoz 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The secretary was reading dutifully .... Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 I was half startled at the figure I saw there . . . 106 
 
 With Marion's first Christmas tree across his shoulder 160 
 
 "My poor daughter!" 188 
 
 " Let me come, Mrs. Herwin" 286 
 
 "Pity Popper!" said Marion, distinctly 324 
 
 2135S43
 
 CONFESSIONS OF 
 A WIFE
 
 CONFESSIONS OF 
 A WIFE 
 
 THE night is wild and wet. It makes faces 
 at me when I go to the window, like a big 
 gargoyle ; it has the dignity that belongs to 
 ugliness and character. I 'm afraid I was born 
 a heathen for beauty's sake ; for all the Christian 
 there is in me and that is scandalously little 
 is kept busy going into sackcloth and doing 
 penance for my esthetic, sins. I have never 
 loved any person who was not beautiful. But 
 then I have never loved many people Father, 
 and poor Ina. 
 
 The wind starts a long way off to-night, and 
 stirs and strengthens with a terrible deliberation. 
 By the time it reaches you, nothing can with- 
 stand it, and you don't care whether anything 
 can or not. I feel as if I could open the window 
 
 3
 
 4 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 and let myself drop, sure that it would lift me 
 up and carry me, and I should n't in the least 
 mind where. I dream of doing that often. 
 
 To-day I found something which pleased me. 
 It was in that old French book of Father's that 
 I read aloud in to keep up my accent. It was 
 about a princess in a shallop on a river no, 
 I '11 copy it, rather ; it seems to me worth while, 
 which is saying something, for most things do 
 not strike me that way. I wish I knew why. 
 
 The princess was a sea-princess, but she lived in an inland 
 country, and when the water-soul within her called, she had 
 only a river wherewith to satisfy it. So she floated out in her 
 shallop upon the river, nor would she let any person guide 
 the shallop, neither her men nor her maidens, but loved the 
 feel of the oar, and the deference of it to her own soft hands. 
 And she chose the hour that precedes and follows the setting 
 of the sun, for it was a fair hour, and the river was comely. 
 And drifting, she thought to row, and rowing, she thought 
 to drift ; so, drifting and rowing, she had her will, for no 
 one gainsaid her. And she was a fair princess, though a 
 haughty, and many men crowned her in their hearts, but to 
 none of them did she incline. And certain knights took 
 boats and sought to overtake her upon the river, for she 
 seemed to drift. But when they drew nearer to her, drift- 
 ing, they perceived that she was rowing, and, row they -never 
 so sturdily, she did keep the shallop in advance of them, nor 
 did she concern herself with them, for she was a princess, 
 and she had the sea in her heart, while they were but knights, 
 and contented themselves with the river, having been born
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 5 
 
 with river-souls, in the river country. And these wearied 
 her, so that she rowed the stronger for her disdain, and 
 escaped them all, though now and then but by a shallop's 
 length. 
 
 Now it chanced that there appeared upon the river a new 
 oar, being the oar of a prince who did disguise himself, but 
 could not disguise his stroke ; nor did he row like these 
 others, the knights who rowed upon the river for her sake 
 who disdained them, and this the princess, being expert in 
 such matters, perceived. But the prince did not seek to 
 overtake the princess, whereat she marveled ; and she glanced 
 backward over the river, and observed him that he rowed 
 not to overtake her, but drifted at the leisure of his heart. 
 
 And every day, at the hour which precedes and follows 
 the setting of the sun, the prince drifted at the leisure of his 
 heart. Then did the leisure pass out of the heart of the 
 princess, and she marveled exceedingly, both at herself and at 
 him who did not overtake her. And while she glanced, she 
 drifted. And it befell that on a certain day she glanced, 
 and behold, he was rowing steadily. Then the princess 
 bent to her oars, she being strong and beautiful, and so 
 escaped him like the others, and he saw that she smiled as 
 she escaped. But he rowed mightily, for he was a prince, 
 and he gained upon her. And she perceived that he gained 
 upon her, and it did not suit her to be overtaken, for thus 
 was her nature, and she followed her nature, for she was 
 princess, and it was permitted her. And she smote the 
 water, and turned her shallop swiftly, and disappeared from 
 his sight, and from the sight of all those others whom he had 
 distanced upon the river. And the light fell, and the dusk 
 rose, and they twain, the escaped and the pursuing, the flee- 
 ing and the seeking, were alone on that part of the river. 
 For it is not a frequented part of the river. And the prin-
 
 6 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 cess hid from him. And she believed him to have passed 
 by unwitting, so she stirred in her shallop to find her oars, 
 but lo! she had lost them. And she was adrift upon the 
 river, and it was dark. Now, while she sat there in per- 
 plexity, but mute, for she was royal, she heard the motion of 
 oars, as they had been muffled, and it was not easy to follow 
 the sound thereof, for it was a subtle stroke, although a 
 mighty. And she recognized the stroke, and she remem- 
 bered that she had lost her oars. 
 
 So the prince lifted her into his own shallop, and she, for 
 she was royal, gainsaid him not. 
 
 I have translated as I copied, and the mistakes 
 will speak for themselves, as mistakes always do. 
 Of course it is a version of Atalanta, one of 
 those modem things that copy the antique with- 
 out a blush, yet I rather like it. I never had 
 any patience with Atalanta. 
 
 I HAVE been pursued all day by a fragment that 
 I cannot mend or join, and I think it must have 
 come from some delicate Sevres cup or vase, of 
 the quality that breaks because it is so beautiful : 
 
 I never know why 't is I love thee so: 
 I do not think 't is that thine eyes for me 
 Grow bright as sudden sunshine on the sea. 
 
 It is thy face I see, and it befell 
 
 Thou wert, and I was, and I love thee well.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 7 
 
 A man wrote that, I 'm sure, but he was different 
 from men ; and no woman could have written it, 
 though she were like women. I must ask Father 
 to look it up for me. He is the most accurate 
 quoter I ever knew, and I suppose I have his 
 instinct for quotation, without his accuracy. I 
 hate etiquette, barbed-wire fences, kindergarten 
 cubes, mathematics, politics, law, and dress-coats. 
 I like to wear golf-skirts, and not to give an 
 account of myself, and to run about the grounds 
 in the dark, and to get into a ruby gown before 
 the fire and write like this when I come in. It 
 is one of the nights when March slips into the 
 arms of May, and chills her to the heart. I 
 know two things in this world that never, never 
 tire me and always rest me I wonder if they 
 always will? One is a sunset, and the other is 
 an open wood fire. 
 
 Mr. Herwin has come in, and is reading to 
 Father ; the thick ceiling, floor, and carpet break 
 the insistence of his voice, and it blurs into a 
 rhythm, like the sound of waves. I don't alto- 
 gether like his voice, and it 's more agreeable 
 taken through a medium of fresco and Wilton 
 carpet. Robert Hazelton had a pleasant voice. 
 Poor Rob ! But he was too short, and he is very 
 plain. 
 
 Oh, that wind ! It roars like a fierce, ele-
 
 8 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 mental, raging creature that does n't know what 
 it wants, but is destined to have it at any cost. 
 I can't help that feeling that if I opened the 
 window and just let myself out, the storm would 
 be kind to me, and I should be upborne, and 
 swept along safely, over the tops of trees, as I 
 am in my dreams (they are usually elms, and 
 very high, and I wonder why they are cultivated 
 trees, and wish they were pines and live-oaks, 
 but they always remain elms), and I think I 
 should never be carried too high, so as to get 
 frightened, or lost among clouds, and so dashed 
 down. I am sure I should stay, like a captive 
 balloon, at just about that height, within sight 
 of earth and houses and people, but well out of 
 their reach, and floating always, now wildly, now 
 gently, if it stormed or if it calmed, with the cold 
 freedom of the dead and the warm sentience of 
 the living. And I think 
 
 Father is sure not to miss me ; the secretary is 
 good for another hour at least. The next best 
 thing to jumping out of the window is to get 
 into the garden. The storm is growing glori- 
 ously worse. I believe I '11 go. 
 
 I WENT. Golf-skirt and waterproof and rubber 
 boots, wind in the face, rain on the head I 
 went. Slapped on the cheek, smitten in the
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 9 
 
 eyes, breath-beaten and storm-shaken, a fighter of 
 the night and of the gale, for the love of storms 
 and for the love of fighting, that was I. I seem 
 to myself to have been a creature of the dark and 
 the weather, sprung of them, as the wet flowers 
 were sprung of the earth, and the falling torrents 
 were born of the clouds. I seem to myself to 
 have been a thousandfold more myself out there. 
 The drawing-room girl in low dresses and trains, 
 receiving beside her father, doing the proper 
 thing, saying what everybody says, even the 
 girl who likes Strauss waltzes, and dances once 
 in a while till morning, looked out of the win- 
 dow at this other girl, like distant relatives. The 
 girl in the garden disowned them, and did n't 
 care a raindrop what they thought of her. Oh, 
 I did n't care what anybody thought of me ! 
 What 's the sense in being alive if you can't hurl 
 away other people's thoughts and respect your 
 own? I suppose, if it comes to that, it 's well 
 to have your thoughts respectable. Truly, I 
 don't think mine have ever been disreputable. 
 Come, Mama Trent ! Out with it ! Have they ? 
 No no. I really don't think they have. I 
 can't answer for what they might be, if it stormed 
 hard enough, and I 'd been to too many recep- 
 tions, and I could n't get into rubber boots and 
 a waterproof and run about gardens.
 
 10 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 When you come to think of it, what 's a 
 garden ? The walls are stone, and pretty high ; 
 there are broken glass bottles all along the top, 
 to keep burglars out and the cat in; James 
 locks the iron gate at eleven ; the shrubbery is 
 all trimmed like bushes that have just come from 
 the barber's ; there is n't a weed to be seen, and 
 the paths are so narrow that I get my golf-skirt 
 wet. Why, if I were a man, I should be out- 
 side, in the clubs, the streets, the theaters, God 
 knows where, doing bohemian things, watching 
 people in the slums, going to queer places with 
 policemen, tramping up and down and watching 
 the colored lights on the long bridges, taking tre- 
 mendous walks out into the country, coming 
 home at any hour, with a latch-key, and wearing 
 a mackintosh no, I should wear an oil-coat, 
 a long oil-coat, and a fisherman's sou'wester, and 
 I should go I wonder where *? and I should 
 do I wonder what *? 
 
 But I am a girl; and I stay in the garden. 
 And that 's bad enough, for the other girls don't 
 care about gardens. I heard a woman tell an- 
 other woman one day that I was " very impru- 
 dent." She said I " went out evenings." I laughed 
 then, for I could afford to, and I did n't care what 
 she said. I don't feel so much like laughing now. 
 The worst thing I ever did in my life I 've done 
 to-night within the last half-hour.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 11 
 
 I 'm glad that woman does n't know it. 
 
 I have n't been outside of my father's garden, 
 either. And you know, Marna Trent, how much 
 you respect your father's garden. In the first 
 place, it 's a garden, and in the next, it 's your 
 father's. I believe the storm-soul got me, as 
 the water-soul took Undine, when nobody ex- 
 pected it. 
 
 " tfhe princess was a sea-princess, but she lived in 
 an inland country " poor thing ! I always 
 thought I should like to go to school with a 
 princess, and be able to say " Poor thing ! " to 
 her, for of course they 're nothing but other girls, 
 only they can't wallow round among wet things 
 in rubber boots and golf-skirts. Who would be 
 a princess if she could be the daughter of an ex- 
 governor, and live in a big, dull suburban place, 
 with a garden seven acres across? 
 
 I went out into the garden, I say, and it 
 stormed like the Last Day (I 've always thought 
 it would come in a spring freshet), and nobody 
 saw me, for the servants were n't about, and the 
 secretary was reading " The Life of Rufus 
 Choate " to Father (Father always chooses some 
 of those contemporary things) ; and I saw the 
 top of Mr. Herwin's head as I crept by the 
 library windows he has rather a nice head, if 
 his hair were n't too curly. I don't like curly 
 men, but straight ones, like Father. I stood on
 
 12 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 tiptoe and peeked in, but I kept a good way off. 
 Father looked very handsome and peaceful and 
 happy in his big leather chair dear Father ! 
 The secretary was reading dutifully. I believe 
 he does it to increase his income while he is 
 studying law, for one day I told him I could n't 
 bear lawyers, and he cultivated a grieved ex- 
 pression, which was not becoming, and I told 
 him so. I never have been able to get on with 
 Mr. Herwin. There 's an Heir-to-the-Throne-in 
 Disguise manner about him which, in my opin- 
 ion, the circumstances don't justify. I feel like 
 a panther stroked the wrong way every time I 
 see him. It 's two years, now, since he has been 
 around. I should think Father would get tired 
 to death of him, but he says he is "a brilliant 
 young man." 
 
 I wonder what he 'd say now*? But I don't 
 see that there is any particular need of his know- 
 ing; I hate to worry Father. He 's always had 
 the most absurd confidence in me; it's perfectly 
 irrational, but pretty solid. It 's like the garden 
 wall, with broken bottles on top. Who knows 
 what I should have done without it ? I hope I 
 should have drawn the line at eloping with the 
 coachman. An hour ago I had never done any- 
 thing very special that I would n't be willing to
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 13 
 
 have my father know. He might have seen any 
 other page in this book ; I 'd have given it to him 
 if he asked for it. I wonder if this is the way 
 people feel when they have done some dreadful 
 thing like one person before the deed and an- 
 other person after, and not able to convince any- 
 body else that it is n't the same person at all. I 
 feel very strangely, and a little seasick, as if I 
 had just got off a shipwreck. 
 
 I went out into the garden, and it stormed as 
 if the skies were breaking up and coming to 
 pieces on the earth, and burying it under you 
 might think they were ashamed to see it. And 
 the wind had worked its temper into a hurricane, 
 and, oh, but I loved it ! I loved it ! And I ran 
 around in it, and I stiffened myself and fought 
 against it, and turned and drew my waterproof- 
 hood up, and fled before it; and I don't know 
 which I liked the better, the battle or the flight, 
 for I love everything that such a storm as that 
 can do to you. My waterproof was drenched 
 before I got past the smoke-bush and the big 
 spiraea in the clump by the tree-house, and my 
 golf-skirt was n't short enough : it hit the borders, 
 and they sopped at me like sponges squeezed 
 out. And there was a hole in my rubber boots, 
 and I could feel my feet squash in the wet. And
 
 14 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 the wilder it was, and the wetter, the happier I 
 felt. And I began to sing, for nobody could 
 hear me, it raved so out there among the trees. 
 I sang opera and ballads and queer things all 
 the love-songs I ever knew, and that one I like 
 about the skipper's daughter and the mate : 
 
 "... a man might sail to Hell in your companie." 
 "Why not to Heaven?" quo' she. 
 
 And pop ! in the middle of them, something 
 dashed at me, and it was Job. I thought he was 
 shut up in the kitchen, for his feet were wet, and 
 he had a sore throat, and I 'd given him some 
 hot whisky; and I scolded him. But I must say 
 I appreciated it to have him take all that trouble 
 to find me there 's no flatterer in this world 
 like your own dog. So I picked him up, and put 
 him under my waterproof in one of the dry spots. 
 
 " Job," I said, " you know better than this ! " 
 
 Then the storm lifted up its voice, and spoke, 
 quite distinctly, so close to me that I jumped. 
 
 "And so do you," it said. 
 
 And there stood a man. 
 
 I jumped, but I did not scream I have so 
 much consolation ; but I have n't another atom. 
 He was very wet, but not so wet as I, and he 
 seemed to shed the storm from his mackintosh as
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 15 
 
 if it had been impudence. He looked exceed- 
 ingly tall in the dark, and his soft felt hat was 
 crushed down over his face in a disgraceful way. 
 I had never noticed how square his shoulders 
 were. 
 
 " Sir," said I, " how did you get here ? " 
 
 " Why, I followed Job, of course," he said. 
 
 " Could you follow him back *? " I suggested 
 quite pleasantly. 
 
 " Not immediately no." 
 
 " If James should come out by accident 
 and he might, you know he would shoot you 
 for a burglar, as surely as you stand here. I 
 don't see," I said " really, Mr. Herwin, I don't 
 see what you are standing here^r." 
 
 " I will explain to you if you like," answered 
 the secretary. He spoke so steadily, with that 
 Heir-to-the-Throne manner of his, that I found 
 it impossible to endure it, and I said : 
 
 " I think you forget what is due to me. You 
 had better go back and read ' Rufus Choate ' to 
 my father." 
 
 " That is unworthy of you," he answered me 
 very quietly. 
 
 Of course I knew it was, and that did n't 
 make me feel any better. I let Job down, for 
 he squirmed so under my waterproof, and in- 
 sisted on kissing Mr. Herwin, which I thought
 
 16 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 very unpleasant of him; so he ran around in 
 his bare feet and sore throat, I mean Job 
 did, and if he has pneumonia it will be Mr. 
 Herwin's fault, and I shall never forgive him, 
 never. By this time we had begun to walk up 
 and down, up and down, for it was pretty cold 
 standing still to be rained on so, and we splashed 
 across the garden, righting the gale and running 
 from it, first this, then that, we two, I and a 
 man, just as I had done alone. Job splashed 
 after us, in his insufferably adorable, patient way, 
 only the paths were so narrow that Job had to 
 walk chiefly in the box border, which was wetter 
 than anything. 
 
 " You had better go into the house," the sec- 
 retary began. 
 
 " I 'm not ready to go into the house." 
 " You are getting very wet." 
 " That 's what I came out for." 
 " Sometime you '11 do this once too often." 
 " I have done it once too often, it seems." 
 " I meant, you risk pneumonia. It is intol- 
 erable." 
 
 " It is Job who has pneumonia, not I. Pick 
 him up, won't you*? Put him under your 
 mackintosh. He must be sopping. Thank you. 
 Why, thank you ! I really did n't think " 
 
 " Don't you really think that I would do any- 
 thing whatever that you asked me to ? "
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 17 
 
 " I never gave the subject any consideration, 
 Mr. Herwin." 
 
 " Then," he said, wheeling, " consider it now ! " 
 
 A cataract of rain swept down from the trees 
 over our heads, and drowned the words off his 
 lips. A street light looked over the wall. I 
 could see the broken bottles glisten, and a faint 
 electric pallor flitted over that part of the garden 
 by the tree-house in the Porter apple-tree. Now, 
 the tree-house has a little thatched roof, and it 
 is n't quite so wet in there, though it is only lat- 
 tice at the sides, and sometimes I go in there 
 'when my storms are particularly wet for no- 
 body would think what a difference there is in 
 storms; some of them are quite dry. 
 
 " Come ! " said the secretary. And he took 
 hold of my hand as if he had been an iron man. 
 Of course all he meant was to put me into the 
 driest wetness there was till the torrent held up a 
 little ; but when I found myself alone in that 
 tree-house in the storm, in the dark, with that 
 man, I could have stabbed him with something, 
 if I had had anything sharp about me. But I 
 had the sense left not to say so. 
 
 " I 've always wanted a name for this tree- 
 house," I began ; " now I 've got it." 
 
 And the man said " Ararat ! " before I got the 
 word out. I did n't suppose he was that kind of 
 man. And I began to feel quite comfortable
 
 i8 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 and to enjoy myself, and it is the scandalous and 
 sacred truth that I began not to want to go in. 
 And at that point, if anybody would believe it, 
 the secretary took it upon himself to make me 
 go in. 
 
 The storm had gone babbling down, it had 
 got past the raving stage, and he put out his 
 hand to help me down the tree-house steps, but 
 he did n't say anything at all, and I would rather 
 he had said anything. The street light looked 
 over the wall at us, and I felt as if it were a 
 policeman, while I climbed down from Ararat. 
 It is a very unbecoming light. I hope I did n't 
 look as ghastly as he did. 
 
 So I said, " You are hoarse, Mr. Herwin. 
 You have taken cold already," just as one says, 
 " Won't you have another lump of sugar ? " at 
 an afternoon tea. I admit that my remark was 
 the more exasperating, seeing that the man was 
 as dumb as a stuffed eagle. Then he opened his 
 mouth, and spake : 
 
 " You will come in now, Miss Marna, won't 
 you ? Your father might be worried." 
 
 Now he spoke in quite a proper tone, gently 
 and deferentially, as a man should, and I said 
 yes, I would go in; for I am quite willing to 
 please people when they speak to me properly. 
 So we came in, up the wet paths, between the
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 19 
 
 box borders, and the rain had stopped. And 
 Mr. Herwin did not talk at all while we went 
 past the spirsea and smoke-bushes, but Job wrig- 
 gled out from under his mackintosh and kissed 
 him in the most unmitigated way. So we came 
 on, and the library lights fell out on us from the 
 window where I had peeked in ; and Father was 
 asleep in his big chair before the fire. And it 
 came over me like that ! what a thing I 'd done 
 prancing about in a dark garden, in a storm, 
 alone in a tree-house with the secretary, and only 
 Job to chaperon me. For I never have done 
 such a thing before in my life. I never did any- 
 thing I should n't want the servants to know. 
 And I wondered what Father would think. So 
 I pulled up my waterproof-hood over my bare, 
 wet head, to hide the scorching of my cheeks. 
 But the man had the manners not to notice this. 
 He did something much worse, however. He 
 began, in a personally conducted tone that I 
 object to : 
 
 " Do you often go out this way in such 
 storms *? " 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " You might get one of those dangerous colds 
 people are having." 
 
 " I could n't get cold that way, any more than 
 an English sparrow."
 
 20 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " The next time you do it," said Mr. Herwin, 
 " I shall go, too. In fact," he said, " every time 
 you do it, I shall come out and bring you in." 
 
 " Very well," I said ; " that would only make 
 it the more interesting." 
 
 The secretary looked at me with a kind of 
 proud motion of his head, for he saw that I 
 taunted him. I was sorry by then, and I would 
 have stopped him, but it was too late. Before 
 the library window, in the face of the porch light, 
 in the sight of my father, he told me how he felt 
 to me. 
 
 " Oh, what a pity ! " I said 
 
 If he had talked that way, if he had looked 
 that way, if I had known he felt that way, out 
 on Ararat, in the dark and wet, I should have 
 said something so insolent to him as no man 
 ever could forgive a woman for, not if she were 
 sorry till she died for having said it. But it was 
 not storming any more. And it seemed different 
 in the light and quiet, and with Father so near. 
 So I answered as I did. What could a girl do 
 more *? I 'm sure I was quite civil to the secre- 
 tary. I can't see any particular reason why he 
 should get up such an expression as he did. 
 And he dropped Job, too, and Job growled at 
 him there 's positively no limit to that dog's 
 intelligence.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 21 
 
 So I said good night, but Mr. Herwin did not 
 answer me. He lifted his hat, and stood bare- 
 headed, and Job and I came, dripping, into the 
 empty hall. 
 
 Now we are quite dry and happy. Job is 
 done up in his gray blanket that matches his 
 blue-skye complexion, bundled before the fire. 
 He has had another dose of whisky; I suspect 
 he has got a little too much. I have had a hot 
 bath, and got out of everything and into some- 
 thing, and now my ruby gown especially the 
 velvet part of it seems to me to understand 
 me better than anything in the world. The rain 
 has quite stopped, but the wind sings down the 
 chimney. It has that tune in its head, too, and 
 seems to be humming it : 
 
 "A man might sail to Hell in your companie." 
 
 But it never gets quite through, comes to a 
 pause, falls short of heaven, and spoils the sense. 
 Father is still asleep in the library. Maggie 
 has come and gone for the night. The house is 
 preposterously still. Mr. Herwin did not come 
 in again. I did n't know but he would. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. HERWIN : I hope I was not 
 uncivil to you the other evening. I was really
 
 22 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 very wet and cross. I did not mean to be ugly, 
 you know, but I 'm liable to break out that way. 
 It 's a kind of attack I have at times : I growl, 
 like Job. I hope you quite understand that I 
 esteem you very highly, and that I am always 
 ready to be your friend, although I cannot be 
 what you ask. 
 
 " Most sincerely yours, 
 
 " MARNA TRENT." 
 
 " DEAR MR. HERWIN : I fail to see why I 
 should be snapped up in this way, as if I had 
 been in the habit of forcing an unwelcome cor- 
 respondence upon you. I must call your atten- 
 tion to the fact that you never received a note 
 from me before, and this, I beg you to observe, 
 is the last with which you will be annoyed. I 
 did not suppose my friendship was a matter of 
 so little consequence to people. For my own 
 part, I think friendship is much nicer than other 
 things. According to my experience, that is the 
 great point on which men and women differ. I 
 am, sir, 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " M. TRENT." 
 
 There are people so constituted that they must 
 express themselves at any proper or improper
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 23 
 
 cost, and I 'm afraid I 'm one of them. I admire 
 the large reserve, the elemental silence that one 
 reads about, in what I call the deaf-mute heroes 
 and heroines ; but I can't imitate it, and whether 
 I 'm above or beneath it, I perceive that I have n't 
 the perception to know. 
 
 There are four ways in which a woman can 
 relieve her mind, if she does n't lavish her heart: 
 a mother, a girl friend, a lover, or a book will 
 serve her. None of these four outlets is open to 
 me. Ina ! Poor Ina ! You sweet, dead, only 
 girl I ever truly cared for ! Sometimes I won- 
 der if my mother's lovely ghost is a little jealous of 
 you, because I can't remember her to love her 
 as I loved you. Pray tell her, Dear, if you get a 
 chance in that wide world of yours and hers, that 
 I have never thought about her in all my life as 
 much as I have this spring. She seems to float 
 before me and about me, in the air, wherever I 
 go or stir. 
 
 A good many people have told me that I 
 ought to be a writer, which only shows the mas- 
 sive ignorance of the average human mind. It 
 sometimes seems to me as if I must carry " Re- 
 jected, with thanks " written all over me, I have 
 explored that subject so thoroughly. I am told 
 that there are persons who have got manuscripts 
 back seventeen times, and have become famous
 
 24 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 at the eighteenth trial trip ; but my pluck gave 
 out at four experiences with prose and two with 
 poetry, and I am done with a literary career for 
 this world. 
 
 There is a fifth method of self-preservation. 
 You can become your own author, publisher, 
 printer, binder, reader, critic, and public; and a 
 common blank-book, with a padlock if you 
 choose, is competent to carry your soul and the 
 secrets thereof, if you have any, or to convince 
 you that you have some, if you have n't, which 
 is substantially the same thing. I call mine 
 " The Accepted Manuscript." 
 
 It is a week to-night since I added anything to 
 the Accepted Manuscript, and I 've nothing but 
 copies of a couple of humiliating notes to fill the 
 gap. Since that evening when I went out into 
 the tree-house in the storm, the secretary has not 
 seen fit to speak to me at all. If I meet him at 
 the door, he lifts his hat, and if I go into the 
 library while he is reading to Father, he lifts his 
 eyes, and their expression is positively exasper- 
 ating. I never denied that Mr. Herwin was a 
 handsome man, and melancholy becomes him, 
 I 'm bound to admit. But he has that remote 
 air, as if I had been caught stabbing him, and 
 nobody knew it but himself and me, and he 
 would n't tell of me, lest I be held up to human
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 25 
 
 execration; it is a manner quite peculiar to Mr. 
 Herwin. I don't pretend to know how the man 
 does it, but he contrives to make me feel as if I 
 had committed high treason, as if I had got en- 
 tangled in a political plot against my own nature. 
 
 I wish Father would dismiss him and get an- 
 other secretary. 
 
 I told him so yesterday, for I got a chance 
 when we met in the hall, and I was going out to 
 drive in my dove-colored cloth, trying to open 
 my chiffon sunshade that stuck. He opened it 
 for me he is quite a gentleman, even when I 
 don't choose to be quite a lady, and I will own 
 that no invariable lady ought to have said what 
 I said to the secretary. And the aggravating 
 thing about it was that the secretary laughed he 
 laughed outright, as if I had amused him more 
 than I could be expected to understand. He 
 had the sunshade in his hand, and he held it over 
 my head, and he said : " What pretty nonsense ! " 
 But he looked at the white silk and chiffon, with 
 the sun shining through it. I was n't quite clear 
 what he meant. I 'm not accustomed to have 
 my sunshades called nonsense, or my language 
 either. I never heard of a governor's secretary 
 before who was impertinent to the governor's 
 daughter. I can't see that Senator Herwin's 
 having been an honest person, and dying poor,
 
 26 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 accounts for it. I have been told that Mrs. Her- 
 win was a Southern beauty, the extravagant 
 kind, and that she led her husband a life. I 
 never saw her, but I 'm sure the secretary re- 
 sembles his mother. He looks remarkably 
 handsome when he is insolent. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. HERWIN : I have spent 
 twenty-four hours trying to decide whether to 
 put your note into the fire, return it unanswered, 
 or show it to my father. It is really unpleasant 
 to receive such things. You put one in such a 
 brutal light ! As if it were a girl's fault because 
 a man liked her. I don't wish to be ill-man- 
 nered ; I 'd rather be barbarous : but you compel 
 me to say, sir, that I disapprove of your persis- 
 tence altogether. Pray, do you think I am 
 the kind of woman who can be browbeaten into 
 loving people*? Perhaps you take me for the 
 other sort that waits to be coaxed. Learn that I 
 am neither. 
 
 " But believe me to be, 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 " MARNA TRENT. 
 
 "P.S. I told you that I esteemed you and 
 would be your friend. You refused my friend- 
 ship, and now you wonder that I decline your
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 27 
 
 love. It seems to me that a man ought to be 
 satisfied with what he can get, and not make 
 such large demands that nobody can possibly 
 meet them. If I were a man, and loved a woman 
 as much as all that, I would well, I would do 
 quite differently." 
 
 " DEAR MR. HERWIN : Certainly not. Why 
 should I tell you what I would do if I were a 
 man ? I cannot see that the circumstances call 
 for it. Very truly, 
 
 " M. T." 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR : Your last note is disagreeable 
 to me. I must beg you to forego any further cor- 
 respondence with me on this subject. It is one 
 on which it is, and will be forever, impossible for 
 us to agree. M. TRENT." 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. HERWIN : The world is so 
 full of women ! I read the other day that there 
 are forty millions in this country. I think if you 
 really would exert yourself, you might manage 
 to love some other one of them. And then you 
 and I would both be quite happy. You are not 
 a dull man (I grant you that), but you don't 
 seem to understand my point in the least. It is 
 not that I have a highly developed aversion to
 
 28 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 you. It is that I do not wish to love any man 
 not any man. Pray consider this as final. You 
 can be so agreeable when you are not troublesome. 
 
 " MARNA TRENT." 
 
 " DEAR FRIEND : Now you are quite reason- 
 able and possible. I never had any objections to 
 your friendship; it was you who objected to 
 mine. Since you are willing to meet me on that 
 basis at last, I find you interesting and valuable 
 to me ; and I am perfectly willing to write to you 
 in this way once in a while, since you wish it, 
 though I prefer to mail anything I may feel like 
 saying to your address. I was sorry the day I left 
 a note in the second volume of ' Rufus Choate,' 
 and I would rather you did not send things by 
 Maggie. There 's something about it I don't 
 just like. I never allowed my heroine to do it in 
 the novel I wrote. You never knew I wrote a 
 novel, did you? I never told anybody before. 
 It is because we are friends that I tell you. That 
 is my idea of a friend somebody you can say 
 things to. I am mistaken in you if you ask me 
 why I never published it. That 's one thing I 
 like about you you are not stupid. You are 
 one of the people who understand ; and there are 
 not enough of them to go round, you know. I 
 never knew but one person who understood
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 29 
 
 that was my girl friend, Ina. She died. Some- 
 times I think she died because she understood 
 too much everything and everybody. People 
 wasted their hearts on her ; they told her every- 
 thing, and went bankrupt in confidence as soon 
 as they came near her. 
 
 " Job and I are sitting in the library, and Fa- 
 ther has gone to bed. You have been gone half 
 an hour. The June-beetles are butting their 
 heads against the screens on account of the 
 lights, and Job barks and bounces at them every 
 time they hit. The moths are out there, too, 
 clinging to the wire netting, and flying about 
 stealthily beautiful little beings, some of them, 
 transparent as spirits, and as indifferent to fate as 
 men and women. How joyously they court 
 death ! To look at them one would think it 
 quite a privilege. 
 
 " I found the roses when you left, and the 
 poems, out in the hall on the hat-tree. You are 
 very thoughtful and kind, and, to tell the truth, 
 I don't mind being remembered. I have never 
 read much of Edwin Arnold. I shall begin with 
 the long one about Radha and Krishna. I have 
 turned the leaves a little. I must say I don't 
 think Krishna was in the least worthy of a girl 
 like that. Why did she waste herself on such a 
 fellow?
 
 30 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 "So you liked my shade hat with the May- 
 flowers ? That is very nice of you. The disad- 
 vantage about a man friend is that his education 
 in millinery is defective, as a rule. I was quite 
 pleased that you knew it was a May-flower. 
 Father asked me if they were hollyhocks, and I 
 told him no, they were peonies. 
 
 " Faithfully your friend, 
 
 " MARNA TRENT. 
 
 " P.S. I forgot to say yes, thank you ; I will 
 drive with you on Sunday, if you wish." 
 
 " OH, now you have spoiled it all ! How could 
 you, how could you begin all over again, and be 
 disagreeable ? Do you suppose I would have 
 walked in the garden with you, by moonlight, 
 by June moonlight, if I had n't trusted you ? I 
 don't trust people over again when they shake 
 my trust, either, not if I can help it. That is 
 one of my peculiarities. I have attacks of lu- 
 nacy, idiocy, if you will, but I swing back, 
 and come to my senses, and look at things with 
 a kind of composure which I don't wonder that 
 you did not count on. I don't think it is char- 
 acteristic of girls, as girls go, and I know that it 
 is not considered admirable or lovable by men. 
 But I cannot help that, and I don't want to help
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 31 
 
 it, which is more. I prefer to swing back and 
 keep the balance of power. 
 
 " Sir, you did wrong to make love to me again, 
 when I had trusted you to make friendship. No, 
 I shall be quite unable to play golf with you on 
 Saturday, and I shall not be at home on Sunday 
 afternoon. I am going out to the cemetery to put 
 some flowers on Ina's grave. And on Monday 
 Father has invited an old friend of ours, Dr. 
 Robert Hazelton, to dinner, so I shall be preen- 
 gaged all that evening, while you are reading to 
 Father, and probably much later. And on Tues- 
 day I am going to a dance at the Curtises'. 
 There is one thing I am convinced of: it is the 
 greatest mistake, both in life and in literature, to 
 suppose that love is the difficult, the complicated 
 thing. It is not love, it is friendship, which is 
 the great problem of civilized society. The 
 other is quite elemental beside it. 
 
 " M. T." 
 
 . June the thirteenth. 
 
 ' IF I loved Mr. Herwin, of course I would not, 
 in fact I perceive that I could not, make him so 
 miserable. I think he is the handsomest man, 
 when he is unhappy, whom I ever knew in my 
 life. I like to be quite just to people. He has 
 the bewildering beauty of a pagan god (I mean,
 
 32 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 of course, one of the good-looking gods), but he 
 has the exasperating sensitiveness of a modern 
 man. And then, he has the terrible persistence 
 of a savage. I think he would have been capa- 
 ble of dashing whole tribes to war for a woman, 
 and carrying her off on his shoulder, bound hand 
 and foot, to his own country, and whether she 
 loved him or hated him would n't have mattered 
 so much he would have got the woman. It 
 must be very uncomfortable to be born with such 
 a frightful will. 
 
 But I do not love him. I have told him that 
 I do not love him. I have told him till I should 
 think he would be ashamed to hear it again. 
 But it seems only to make him worse and worse. 
 He has a kind of sublimated insolence such as I 
 never met in any other person, and when I scorn 
 him for it, I find that I admire him for it 
 which is despicable in me, of course, and I know 
 it perfectly. 
 
 He had the arrogance to tell me to-day in so 
 many words that I did n't understand myself. 
 He said but I will not write what he said. 
 The Accepted Manuscript rejects the quotation. 
 
 Oh, if I could talk with Ina ! My poor Ina ! 
 
 If I could only put my head on my mother's 
 lap a minute ! It seems to me a lonely girl is 
 the loneliest being in all the world.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 33 
 
 June the fourteenth. 
 
 I PUT the date down. I put it down precisely, 
 and drive it into my memory like the nail that 
 Jael drove into living flesh and bone and brain. 
 Now that I have done it, I wonder that I am not 
 as dead as Sisera. 
 
 I have told a person to-night I, being sane 
 and in my right mind, competent to sign a will, 
 or serve as a witness, or be treasurer of a charity 
 bazaar I, Marna Trent, have told a person 
 that I 
 
 How long ago was it? Forty-five minutes, 
 by my watch. We were in the drawing-room, 
 for Father had two governors and three senators 
 to dinner, and he had them prisoners in the 
 library, and the secretary was let off. So Job 
 was lying on the flounce of my white swiss with 
 the May-flowers embroidered on it, and the lights 
 were a little low on account of the June-beetles, 
 and there was a moon, and our long lace curtain 
 drifted in and put, and blew against me, and I 
 got twisted in it like a veil. 
 
 And the secretary said Then I said 
 He looked like that savage I wrote about the 
 one that flung all the tribes into war. If he had 
 picked me up and jumped over the garden wall 
 with me, I should n't have been surprised in the 
 least. The terrible thing is that I should n't
 
 34 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 have much cared if he had. For the man did 
 look as glorious as a deity. But he had the 
 divine originality to tell me that I loved him. 
 
 And the veriest squaw in the latest great and 
 gory North American historical novel could n't 
 have acted worse than I did. 
 
 
 
 For I said I did. 
 
 As soon as the words were out of me, I could 
 have killed myself. And when I saw the ex- 
 pression on his face, I could have killed him 
 (that is, I could have if, say, it had been the 
 fashion of my tribe). There never was a civil- 
 ized woman who had more of the " forest pri- 
 meval" in her than I, and never one who was 
 less suspected of it. I am thought to be quite 
 a proper person, like other well-bred girls; and 
 the curious thing is that the savage in me never 
 breaks out in improper ways, but only smolders, 
 and sharpens knives, and thinks things, and 
 hums war-cries under its breath and carries 
 chiffon sunshades, and wears twelve-button 
 gloves and satin slippers or embroidered May- 
 flowers all the while. And nothing could prove 
 it so well as the fact that my hand and my brain 
 are writing this sentence, putting words together 
 decently and in order, while I have fled into a 
 pathless place and hidden from myself. If he 
 were here this minute, searching my soul with
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 35 
 
 his splendid eyes, that man could never find me. 
 I cannot find myself. There is no trail. 
 
 All I know is that I got straight up, and went 
 out of the drawing-room, and left him alone. 
 Any school-girl might have done as silly a thing. 
 I can't say that I take any particular comfort in 
 the recollection of the fact. But I am convinced 
 I should do it again under the same circum- 
 stances. 
 
 For the lace curtain blew so, and fell over my 
 head and face, and I stood up to push it away, 
 and he sprang to his feet, and his arms and I 
 dipped under them, as if we had been playing 
 that game that children call " Open the gates to 
 let the king come in " and so I whirled about, 
 and swung out, and I found I was free, and I 
 ran. 
 
 He has n't gone yet. It is perfectly still in 
 the drawing-room. That is his cigar on the 
 piazza. I wonder what he 's waiting for? 
 
 I PUT my head out of the window just now to 
 ask him, for it is very tiresome up here, and 
 cigar-smoke makes me nervous. So I leaned 
 out a little way, and I said : 
 
 " What are you waiting for, Mr. Herwin ? " 
 
 " You." 
 
 " You '11 wait a good while, then."
 
 36 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Oh, no, I sha'n't." 
 " Sir, I find you insufferable." 
 " Dear, I find you adorable." 
 "Mr. Herwin, go home. I am not coming 
 down." 
 
 " Marna, come down. I am not going home." 
 " Then you will spend the night on the piazza. 
 What are you waiting for, anyway ? " 
 " To take something." 
 
 " Call James. He has the keys of the wine- 
 cellar." 
 
 " Are you going to be insufferable ? " 
 " Well, I 'd rather be anything than adorable." 
 " But, you see, you can't help yourself." 
 " You '11 find I can. . . . What is it you are 
 waiting to take, Mr. Herwin ? " 
 " One of my rights." 
 " You have no rights, sir." 
 " Oh, yes, I have. . . . Marna, come down ! " 
 " I might, if you spoke to me properly." 
 " Won't you come down please ? " 
 " I am sorry to disappoint you. But I do not 
 please." And then I shut the window down. 
 But it is a pretty warm night, and I could n't 
 stand it as long as I thought I could. So I 
 opened the window after a while, as softly as a 
 moonbeam sliding around the edges of a leaf. 
 I did n't think anybody could hear me. That
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 37 
 
 man has the ears of an intelligent Cherokee. 
 But I shall not write down what he said. The 
 Accepted Manuscript declines the publication 
 of such language. So I answered, for I had to 
 say something : 
 
 " Where is Job, Mr. Herwin <? " 
 
 " On my lap." 
 
 " I must say I don't think much of his taste. 
 What is he doing *? " 
 
 " Kissing me." 
 
 " Oh, good gracious ! " . . . 
 
 So I shut the window down again, and I 
 locked it, too. Pretty soon Job came up to my 
 door and cried, and I let him in. But I did n't 
 go down. And I did n't open the window. 
 And there is n't air enough in this room to fill 
 the lungs of a moth. And Job's tongue hangs 
 out of his mouth like a long, pink ribbon, he 
 pants "so. It is ten o'clock. 
 
 IT is half-past ten. I have opened the window 
 far enough to tuck my silver hand-glass under 
 the little one. By the pronounced absence of 
 nicotine from the atmosphere, I infer that the 
 secretary has given up a bad argument and gone 
 home. I wonder, by the way, what kind of 
 home he has? It never occurred to me to 
 wonder, before. Some sort of chambers, I sup-
 
 38 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 pose, among a lot of bachelors. I should think 
 he must be quite comfortable and happy. 
 
 The governors and the senators have gone, 
 too. I have kissed Father good night, and sent 
 Maggie away, for I could n't bear the sight of 
 her to-night, and had hard work not to tell her 
 so. And now Job and I are locked in. Job is 
 asleep in his basket bed by the window; and 
 when the June-beetles hit on the screen, he 
 growls in his dreams, for there never was any- 
 body so intelligent as Job ; but when the moths 
 come, they are so beautiful and so stealthy, he 
 does not growl. As I write, they whirl and flit, 
 and retreat and advance, and yield and persist, 
 like half-embodied souls entangled in some 
 eternal game. That invisible barrier between 
 them and delight and death seems to tantalize 
 them beyond endurance. 
 
 It is eleven o'clock. 
 
 IT is half-past eleven. I have n't begun to un- 
 dress. I think there never was anything worse 
 than the weather to-night. I cannot get breath 
 enough to think. Job squirms about in his 
 basket, and sits up and begs like a china dog in 
 a country grocery. I think he wants a walk. I 
 believe I '11 slip out into the garden with him ; 
 I 've done it before, as late as this. The moon
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 39 
 
 is as bright as an army with banners. There is 
 something martial and terrible about it it 
 seems to move right over one, as if it had orders 
 to prepare for a vast battle of the elements. I 
 believe there '11 be a tremendous easterly storm 
 to-morrow. I always know before the weather 
 bureau does when an easterly is on the way. 
 Perhaps I may come to my senses out in the 
 garden. 
 
 IT is twelve o'clock it is, to be precise, half- 
 past twelve o'clock. 
 
 I did come to my senses out in the garden 
 or I lost them forever, and the terrible thing is 
 that I cannot tell which. 
 
 For Job and I went out into the garden, and 
 the world was as white as death, and as warm as 
 life, and we plunged into the night as if we 
 plunged into a bath of warmth and whiteness 
 and I ran faster than Job. The yellow June 
 lilies are out, and the purple fleurs-de-lis; the 
 white climber is in blossom on the tree-house, 
 and the other roses oh, the roses ! There was 
 such a scent of everything in one a lily-honey- 
 iris-rose perfume that I felt drowned in it, as 
 if I had been one flower trying to become an- 
 other, or doomed to become others still. It was 
 as quiet as paradise. I ran up the steps to
 
 40 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Ararat, and Job stayed below to paw a toad. 
 The little white rose followed me all over the 
 lattice, and seemed to creep after me; it has a 
 golden heart, and such a scent as I cannot de- 
 scribe ; it is the kind of sweetness that makes 
 you not want to talk about it. The electric 
 light in the street was out, for this suburb, being 
 of an economical turn of mind, never competes 
 with the moon. There was moon enough 
 oh, there was enough, I think, for the whole 
 world ! For, when that happened which did 
 happen, it seemed to me as if the whole world 
 were looking at me. 
 
 As I sat, quite by myself, in Ararat, behind 
 the vines, all flecked with leaf-shadows and 
 flower-shadows (and thinking how pretty shadows 
 are on white dresses and on bare hands and a 
 little bit of your arm), I heard Job's tail hit the 
 foot of the tree-house steps. And as I looked, 
 it began to wag in the most unpardonable man- 
 ner. Then I knew what had happened, and my 
 heart leaped in my body like a live creature that 
 had been caught in a trap. My lips moved, but 
 they were as dry as a dead, red maple-leaf; my 
 words refused me, and there could n't have been 
 a rose in the garden as red as my cheeks, for I 
 felt as if I could have died of fear and joy, and 
 of shame because I felt joy. There is something
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 41 
 
 terrible about joy. It does n't seem to mind 
 any of the other emotions. 
 
 " Do not be frightened," he said quite gently. 
 " It is only I." 
 
 // was only he. It was only the only person 
 in the world who could have frightened me, out 
 there in Ararat in my father's garden, at more 
 than half-past eleven by the June moon. 
 
 He came up the tree-house steps, tramping 
 steadily, and he made no more apology for his 
 behavior than the moon did, or the west wind, 
 which, by now, had begun to stir and rise. 
 
 " You intrude, Mr. Herwin," I said. " Since 
 you do, I must go into the house." 
 
 " Presently," he said serenely. But I looked 
 up into his eyes, and I saw that he was not 
 serene. And he stood between me and the tree- 
 house steps. And I said : 
 
 " Let me pass, sir ! " 
 
 " In a minute, Marna." 
 
 " Let me pass this minute ! " 
 
 " My beautiful ! " 
 
 "You presume, Mr. Herwin, and take a 
 liberty." 
 
 " Perhaps I do. I beg your pardon. Go into 
 the house, if you will." 
 
 He stepped back. I moved to go down the 
 tree-house steps, but I tripped over something
 
 42 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 it was Job ; for Job had forgotten his toad, and 
 he had come up into Ararat, wiggling and wag- 
 gling at the secretary, and he took my dress in 
 his teeth to shake it the way he does, and that 
 tripped me, and I fell. 
 
 I should have gone clear down the tree-house 
 steps, the whole length, but he caught me. And 
 when he had caught me he did not let me go. 
 
 " I will not take it," he said, between his teeth. 
 And he went as white as the moon. " You shall 
 give it to me." 
 
 " I will never give it to you ! " I cried. 
 
 " What if I held you here until you did *? " 
 
 " I should hate and abhor you." 
 
 " You could n't hate me." 
 
 " When you speak like that, I despise you." 
 
 " No, you don't ; you love me." 
 
 " I wish you a very good evening, Mr. 
 Herwin." 
 
 " I wish you to be my wife, Miss Trent." 
 
 " I must decline the honor, sir." 
 
 "But I decline the declination. . . . You 
 love me ! " 
 
 " Do you think it is proper keeping a girl out 
 here at midnight, this way*?" 
 
 " We will make it proper. We will tell the 
 whole world to-morrow morning. I will wake 
 your father up and tell him now, if you say so."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 43 
 
 " I don't say anything not anything, you 
 understand." 
 
 "You have said everything, Dear," he answered 
 in another tone, and he spoke so reverently and 
 so solemnly that my spirit died within me, and I 
 felt, suddenly and strangely, less like a girl in 
 love than like a girl at prayer. And the tears 
 came to me, I don't know why, from some depth 
 in me that I had never known or felt in all my 
 life ; and they began to roll down my cheeks, 
 and I trembled, for I was more afraid of my own 
 tears than I was of him, or of his love. 
 
 " God forgive me ! " he said. " What have I 
 done "? I have made you cry ! " And he took 
 my face between his hands. 
 
 Oh, Mother, Mother! My dead Mother! 
 The man took my face between his hands, and 
 he kissed me on the lips. Mother, Mother, 
 Mother I 
 
 IT is two o'clock. I cannot sleep. I am sitting 
 up straight here in my night-dress. I think I 
 shall never sleep again. The night grows cruelly 
 bright and brighter all the time. I wish the 
 moon could be put out. I feel as if my eyelids 
 had been burned off, as if my eyes would never 
 feel any softness or darkness again. I wonder if 
 there are people in the world who would not
 
 
 44 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 feel as unhappy if they had committed a great 
 sin as I feel about that kiss *? 
 
 The music over at the Curtises' has but just 
 stopped. Somebody has been serenading one of 
 the Curtis girls a college crowd, I think. 
 They sang a thing I do not know. But the 
 German words came over quite distinctly: 
 
 Er hat mich gekiisst. 
 
 My cheeks blaze till they smart and ache. I 
 feel as if the whole world knew. I feel as if the 
 climbing rose told, and the iris, the June lilies, 
 and even the poor gray toad that Job tormented ; 
 as if every sweet, loving, gracious thing and every 
 little, common, unpopular thing in nature con- 
 spired against me ; and as if the moon sided with 
 them, and the warm west wind drove them on. 
 
 And the moths now I have it ! It was the 
 moths. They who delight in dying, and die of 
 delight they would be the first to tell of me. 
 They would see me led to delight and death, 
 and not be sorry for me at all. Nobody would 
 be sorry for me. 
 
 Er hat mich gekiisst. 
 
 And yet I do not wish or mean to marry this 
 man nor any man; no, not any man. That 
 is my nature.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 45 
 
 Why has not my nature as much claim to 
 recognition as his nature ? I can't see that he 
 has a monopoly in natures. In that Indian poem 
 which he sent me were some words. They keep 
 close behind my thoughts, as close as Job keeps 
 to my shadow: 
 
 Thy heart has entered : let thy feet go too. 
 Give him the drink of amrit from thy lips. 
 
 But Radha was quite a dignified person. No- 
 body took any liberties with her. Krishna was 
 bad enough, but he did not steal. That a man 
 should kiss you when you do not mean to be 
 his wife it is a dreadful thing. I can't think 
 of anything worse that could happen to a girl. 
 He has made me so unhappy that I never want 
 to see his face again. 
 
 I think I really shall ask Father to dismiss the 
 secretary.
 
 II 
 
 June the twenty-fifth. 
 
 WHERE shall I find a name for the thing 
 which has befallen me ? It seems to me 
 as if there were no name for it in earth or heaven. 
 If I call it joy, I shrink away from the word ; 
 and if I call it altogether fear, I know that I do 
 it a wrong : but if I call it hope, I find that my 
 fear pulls my hope down, as the drowning pulls 
 down his rescuer. 
 
 Yet I cannot deny that I am happy. I would 
 if I could, for I certainly am not comfortable. 
 Write it down, Marna Trent fling it into black 
 and white, and let it stare you out of your sane 
 senses. See ! How do you like the looks of it? 
 
 You have promised a man that you would be 
 his wife. Ton have promised a MAN that 
 you would be his wife. 
 
 I have been trying to recall the exact lan- 
 guage : whether I did n't say that I would be 
 his employer's daughter, or possibly his consid- 
 erate friend, or even his dearest enemy, or almost 
 
 4 6
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 47 
 
 anything that might be mentioned, except that 
 one dreadful thing. I am afraid I did say 
 " wife." No ; now I think of it, it was he who 
 said that. All I said was " Yes," and, on the 
 whole, sometime, perhaps, I would; and all I 
 did was not to turn him out of the room after I 
 had said it. That is n't strictly true, either. It 
 was n't quite all I did. As for him, he did so 
 many things that I don't dare to think of them, 
 because, if I do, the Wilderness Girl in me 
 comes up, and I feel as if I could call out my 
 whole tribe and have them kill him on the spot 
 I do indeed. 
 
 But the perfectly ridiculous thing about that 
 is that if I saw so much as a woodpecker nip- 
 ping at him, I should kill the woodpecker ! And 
 if I saw anybody really trying to do him any 
 harm, all the tomahawks of colonial history 
 would have to hit me first. I think I should 
 feel a positive ecstasy in a tomahawk that was 
 meant for him. 
 
 This seems to me a pitiable state of mind for 
 a girl to be in. I don't respect it; really, I 
 don't. There 's a part of me that stands off and 
 looks on at myself, and keeps quite collected 
 and sane, and says, "What a lunatic that girl is!" 
 But the Wilderness Girl does n't mind the other 
 girl a bit, and this is what mortifies me so.
 
 48 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I don't think I will write any more to-night. 
 I 'm ashamed to. I don't know what I might 
 say. I 'm afraid the Accepted Manuscript would 
 reject me altogether if I should once let myself 
 go and offer it any such copy as comes pouring 
 upon this paper, hot and fast, like the drops of 
 my heart's blood. I '11 shut the book and go to 
 bed. 
 
 An hour later. 
 
 I CAN'T do it. I 've got as far as my hair and 
 my slippers and my white gown (for it is such 
 a warm night, and no moon, just that sultry 
 darkness which smothers the breath out of you, 
 soul and body) the gown with elbow-sleeves 
 and the Valenciennes yoke. It is rather pretty. 
 Nobody ever sees me in it but Maggie ; only 
 once in a while when Father rings, and I run 
 down in a hurry. Maggie thinks it is becoming ; 
 but Father asked me if I did n't take cold in it. 
 I 've always been fond of this gown. Some- 
 times I wish the sleeves were longer. 
 
 Now I think of it, I must have been out of my 
 right mind. I shall have to write and tell him 
 so. I wonder if it was n't a sunstroke*? I was 
 out at noon, in the garden, rather long to-day. 
 They say people do such queer things after sun-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 49 
 
 strokes. Job had something like a sunstroke, 
 I 'm convinced. It was trying to find Job that 
 I got into the sun. He was up in the tree-house, 
 and it was hotter than anything; and he only 
 shook hands, he was so weak, and did n't kiss 
 me at all. 
 
 I DON'T see, in the least, why Mr. Herwin should 
 have felt called upon to make up for Job's 
 omission. 
 
 I HAD to give him sherbet, and put cracked ice 
 on the back of his neck I mean Job's neck. 
 Job is much better. He is snoring in his basket, 
 with his four feet up in the air. I shingled him 
 to-day. He has kept his winter flannels on too 
 long, the poor dear thing. I 'm afraid I have 
 neglected Job lately. I mean to devote myself 
 to him exclusively hereafter. 
 
 MR. HERWIN'S hair does curl beautifully, and it 
 is so much softer than one would have thought. 
 
 hours later. 
 
 IT is well on toward morning. I wish I had 
 been born one of those people who sleep when 
 things happen. I am writing on and on, in this 
 perfectly preposterous way. I am likely to
 
 50 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 drown myself in seaweed and shells, because I 
 am afraid to wade in and dare the ocean. 
 
 Plunge, Mama Trent ! Admit it once for all. 
 You love this man so much so much there 
 is nothing you will not think, or feel, or do, or 
 be, for his dear sake. You will even be his wife, 
 because he wishes it. And what is there more 
 than that a girl could do for a man's sake ? 
 
 WHY do you have to write your soul, I wonder ? 
 Other people don't. They talk it, or they keep 
 it to themselves and don't express it at all. 
 Sometimes I suspect that is the best thing to do 
 with souls lock them up. But I have n't got 
 that kind. Mine is a jack-in-the-box, and is 
 always pushing the lid and jumping up. Well, 
 if you 've got to write, stop writing to yourself, 
 and write to him, then. Sit down here, in your 
 pretty lace gown, alone in your own room, at 
 two o'clock in the morning, and tell this man 
 whose wife you have promised to be how you 
 feel about him now, at the very beginning of 
 everything. I don't believe you could do a bet- 
 ter thing. Come to think of it, he might rather 
 like it, on the whole. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. HERWIN : It occurs to me 
 that a note from me, under the circumstances,
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 51 
 
 might be agreeable to you. But now that I am 
 trying to write it, I am not sure that I have be- 
 gun it just right. I will send this as it stands, 
 and try again. Faithfully yours, 
 
 "MARNA TRENT." 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND : I am not sleeping very 
 well to-night, I 've been anxious about Job, on 
 account of his sunstroke, and so I thought I 
 would write a line to you, and put it in the first 
 volume of ' Rufus Choate ' to-morrow. It is very 
 strange, but now I feel quite willing to put notes 
 in * Rufus Choate,' and I sha'n't be troubled if 
 you send things by Maggie. 
 
 "Your affectionate 
 
 "MARNA TRENT." 
 
 " DEAR, what have we done ? Oh, what have 
 we done ? Why did you make me love you ? 
 I was quite happy before. All my days rose 
 and set in peaceful easts and wests gray and 
 rose and sunlight colors. Now I am caught up 
 into a stormy sky, dashed with scarlet and purple 
 and fire, and swept along, I don't know where, 
 I don't know why, carried away from myself, 
 as I used to dream that I should be if I let my- 
 self out of the window, and did not fall, but 
 were taken up by the wind, and borne to the
 
 52 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 tops of the elms never any higher, so as to be 
 dangerous, but whirled along over the heads of 
 people, out of everybody's reach. 
 
 " Now we are swept along together, you and 
 I, and I am out of everybody's reach but yours. 
 And now that I and my dream are one, I am 
 afraid of my dream; and I am afraid of you. 
 Why did you love me *? Why did you make 
 me, why did you let me, love you ? For you 
 did you know you did : you made me do it. 
 I did n't want to love you. Have n't I entreated 
 you, by every look and word and tone these ten 
 weeks past, not to make me love you *? My 
 heart has been a beggar at your feet all the spring 
 and summer, praying to you not to let me love 
 you. You know it has. You are not a stupid 
 man. You knew I did n't mean to love you, 
 Dana Herwin; or, if you did n't know it, then I 
 take it back, and you are a stupid man, and you 
 deserve to be told so. Of course you know I 
 had to be decent and friendly, and I did n't keep 
 out of your way altogether. How could I? If 
 I had n't been friendly with you, that would 
 have been telling. Nothing gives away the 
 secret of a girl's heart quicker than that not to 
 dare to be friends with a man. She might as 
 well propose to him and done with it, I think. 
 Of course I had to treat you prettily.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 53 
 
 " But I did n't want to love you this way 
 not this way. I did n't want to marry you. I 
 never thought of such a dreadful thing ! And I 
 wish you to understand, sir, that it is very dis- 
 agreeable to me to think of it now. I will be 
 honest with you at the beginning of everything. 
 If a woman is honest with herself and her love, 
 she must be honest with the man she loves. 
 And I tell you, sir, for it is the truth, and I 've 
 got to tell you, if I could unlove you I would 
 do it this minute, and stand by the consequences. 
 I believe I '11 try. If you don't have any more 
 notes from me, you will know I have succeeded. 
 " Yours, M. T." 
 
 The light fell, and the dusk rose, and they twain, the escaped 
 and the pursuing, the fleeing and the seeking, were alone on 
 that part of the river. For it is not a frequented part of the 
 river. And the princess hid from him. 
 
 " I AM sorry if it does n't please you that I send 
 notes without beginnings. I 've tried a good 
 many different ones, but they do not suit me. 
 Perhaps it is because I don't quite see ends. 
 How solemn a thing is a beginning without an 
 end ! A love that is never to have an end 
 seems to me more sacred to think of than a life 
 that is to have no end; because you can live
 
 54 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 without loving, but you can't love without living, 
 and the moment life and love become one 
 that is a terrible moment. I wrote long ago, in 
 something I have that nobody sees, that joy is 
 terrible. But you don't seem to think so, and 
 that is what perplexes me. 
 
 " I remember a book my mother gave me 
 when I was a little girl I keep it now with 
 my Bible. It is called 'A Story Without an 
 End,' and is one of those old-time allegories 
 about the human soul. A Child who was always 
 spelled with a big C lived in a hut in a forest, 
 alone with the birds and the butterflies, the 
 flowers and the animals, and a little looking- 
 glass covered with cobwebs in which he tried to 
 see himself. And the bluebells were taller than 
 the Child, and delighted me. There was a 
 chapter on Faith, and one on Aspiration, and 
 one on Love ; and it seemed to me I understood 
 the chapter stories about Faith, and even about 
 Aspiration, but the one about Love I could not 
 understand, and it troubled me. I seemed to 
 sit down before it as the Child sat under the 
 bluebells that were taller than himself with 
 his chin in his hands this way. I '11 show 
 you next time we are in the drawing-room to- 
 gether. That is, if you won't disturb me ; for 
 I tell you at the beginning, I can't bear to have
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 55 
 
 my chin touched. If you ever do that, I shall 
 know that you wish to quarrel with me badly. 
 You are quite mistaken that I have a dimple 
 there. Nobody else ever told me so. My 
 dimple is in my left cheek. I consider it a kind 
 of embezzlement to create dimples where they 
 don't exist, and much worse to make them an 
 excuse for doing things. 
 
 " Sir, you kissed my chin yesterday, when I 
 had asked you not to. This is the reason I am 
 writing you without beginnings. The blue- 
 bells are taller than I to-day, and you must 
 leave me alone with them in my forest. I shall 
 stay there till you have learned not to 
 Why do you do things I ask you not to *? I 
 don't love you for it truly I don't. I suppose 
 some women would. But when a man chooses 
 a Wilderness Girl, he must not expect her to 
 be precisely like all the other girls, and, in my 
 opinion, he should treat her accordingly. No, 
 I am not ready yet to wear rings for people. 
 When I am, I '11 let you know. Nor I don't 
 care what stone it is, as long as it is n't a dia- 
 mond. I don't know how much I love you, 
 I admit that, and I want you to understand 
 that you don't know, either. Perhaps it is not 
 so very much; who knows? Perhaps a little 
 more than that I can't say. But I do know
 
 56 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 that I could not vulgarize my love for you 
 whether it be little, or much, or less by mak- 
 ing myself prisoner to a commonplace solitaire. 
 
 "Why need I be a prisoner at all? I 'm sure 
 I can love you quite as much without rings. 
 " Lovingly and loyally, 
 " Yours, 
 
 "MARNA." 
 
 " I THINK, on the whole, if I 'd got to wear 
 any, I 'd like it to be a ruby; a small ruby, 
 deep at the heart, and fed by an aorta of blazing 
 color that you must take a little on trust, but 
 get glimpses of once in a while, if you know 
 how to treat the ruby and handle it just right. 
 Of course it must be a carmine ruby not one 
 of those magenta things. I am not at all pre- 
 pared for any kind of rubies yet. Really, you 
 must not bother me and hurry me so. It makes 
 me a little fretful. I shall run off into my forest 
 if I am hurried, and then no man can find me 
 not even you, sir. 
 
 "This evening you annoyed me. I think 
 once when you come, and once when you go, is 
 enough. I do, indeed." 
 
 "DEAR, you were very considerate and gentle 
 with me to-day, and I love you. I do love you.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 57 
 
 If you will like it, if it will make you happy, I 
 will wear your ring. You may put it on to- 
 morrow evening. For truly I do wish to make 
 you happy. MARNA. 
 
 " P.S. Be patient with me. I know I make 
 you a great deal of trouble, but indeed, indeed, 
 I cannot help it. It is my nature, I 'm afraid. 
 But what is nature ? It seems to me a trackless 
 place ; a great tropical jungle where it is easy to 
 get lost on foot, or a vast space of ether where 
 it is possible to get lost on wings. After all, I 
 am rather young, though I don't feel as if I were, 
 no motherless girl does, I think, and I don't 
 always know the difference between my feet and 
 my wings. All I know is that I love you. And 
 a ruby is love incarnate. Bind me to you with 
 your ruby, my dear Love ! Then I cannot get 
 away if I would, and perhaps who knows ? 
 perhaps I would not if I could, for I am, and 
 God knows I want to be, 
 
 " Your MARNA." 
 
 " MOTHER ? My dear dead Mother out some- 
 where in the wide summer night, I write a note 
 to you. Did any girl ever write a letter to her 
 dead mother before? Oh, I don't know, but, 
 Mother, I must! I am such a lonely girl ! I
 
 58 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 have nobody to speak to I cannot talk to the 
 girls I know, and there is n't any older woman 
 who has ever shown a mother-heart to me that I 
 could care for, to turn to now. Mother, don't 
 forget me in your grand heaven ! I never needed 
 you so much when I was a little crying baby on 
 your heart, a little black-faced baby holding its 
 breath till it almost died because it could n't get 
 what it wanted, the way they tell me I used to 
 do, I never needed you so much when I wore 
 pink socks and little crocheted sacks, as I do to- 
 day. I wonder if you remember about the socks 
 and the sacks, up there in your great silence ? 
 Have the angels driven baby-clothes out of your 
 heart ? I don't believe it ! Because I remem- 
 ber how much you littled me, before you died 
 I don't see many mothers like you in these 
 grown-up days. Once, when you had been to 
 Montreal with Father, and I had that typhoid 
 fever and so nearly died, and you came home, 
 and got to my bed without anybody's telling me, 
 and I thought it was the strange nurse, but some- 
 thing fell on my face, hot, fast, drop after drop, 
 splashing down, I thought : ' Nurses don't 
 cry over little girl patients,' and I looked, and 
 they were my mother's tears, and it was my 
 mother's face. 
 
 " Sacred mother's tears ! Flow for me to-day.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 59 
 
 My mother's face ! Lean down to mine a little, 
 out of heaven, if you can. 
 
 " Kiss me, Mother if they will let you. I 
 have told him I would wear his ruby ring." 
 
 So the princess, for she was royal, gainsaid him not. 
 
 "Mr DEAR MR. HERWIN : I have worn it five 
 hours. I cannot stand it another minute. It 
 seems to cut into my finger, and to eat my flesh 
 like fire. I feel as if I were led, a prisoner. It 
 seems to me like handcuffs. I don't like it at 
 all ; I really don't. 
 
 " I have taken it off, and, you see, it fell on 
 the floor. It has rolled away under the bureau. 
 Job has gone to try to find it. Probably he 
 thinks it is a collar. I 'm sure I should n't blame 
 him if he did. It strikes me, I must say, very 
 much in that same light. 
 
 " Pray don't feel at all hurt if I return it to 
 you to-morrow. You won't, will you? Really, 
 I don't wish to be rude, or to hurt your feelings. 
 If I supposed it possible that you could try to 
 understand but men are born so dull. I don't 
 know why. I think God found his finest nature 
 unemployed on the making of Adam, and so 
 poor Eve was sacrificed to its expression. 

 
 60 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " I don't mean anything profane, either. 
 Truly, I think only the Being who created her 
 can possibly understand how a woman feels. 
 " Shall I send you back the ruby ? 
 " Your troubled 
 
 " WILDERNESS GIRL. 
 
 " P.S. Job has found the ring. He made a 
 ball of it, and rolled it all over the floor, before 
 I could stop him. Then he took it and shook 
 it, and dropped it in his bowl of water the 
 wine-colored glass finger-bowl that I keep in my 
 room for him. So it is quite clean, and not 
 hurt a bit. 
 
 " P.P.S. It is a wonderful ruby. I admire 
 your taste in selecting it, even if I cannot wear 
 your ring. I don't think I ever saw a finer. It 
 has a heart as deep as life and as shy as love ; 
 and the color is something so exquisite that I 
 could look at it all night." 
 
 Tuesday evening. 
 
 " DEAR, I am sorry. I was wrong and foolish, 
 like a pouting child. And I will wear it, after 
 all. When you took my ringless hand so gently, 
 and looked at it so sadly, and laid it down with- 
 out a word, I could have curled myself against 
 your heart, and put my arms about you, and
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 61 
 
 lifted my lips to you of my own free will. No ; 
 I know I did n't. But I punish myself by tell- 
 ing you what I feel like doing, if that is any 
 comfort to you. I never saw you look so glori- 
 ous in my life. If ever I should marry you, sir, 
 I shall spoil you, for I shall let you know what a 
 handsome man you are. There 's something 
 about your hair and the pose of your head. 
 And your eyes are like a revolving light in a 
 lighthouse, I think : they darken and blaze, and 
 then I miss a revolution, and they blaze and 
 darken. I sometimes wish I could see your 
 mouth. The other way of getting acquainted 
 with it does not seem quite judicial. Of course 
 a dark mustache becomes you, but still it is a 
 little like a mask or a domino, after all, is n't it"? 
 Once in a while it comes over me like that! 
 What kind of man is in his mouth ? All I know 
 to-night is that he is a man dear to me ; so dear 
 that when I am with him I cannot let him know 
 how dear he is, and when I am away from him 
 I cannot do anything but write him notes to try 
 to tell him. 
 
 " That last of yours (by Maggie) was a lovely 
 letter. I suppose it is what people call a love-let- 
 ter. I wish I could send you anything like that. 
 It took my breath away. I felt smothered. 
 But I cannot write like that. No. My heart
 
 62 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 steps back and waits for yours. I should like 
 you to write me on and on like that forever, and 
 I should like to answer you always far beyond 
 you, always stepping back a little waiting for 
 you, on forever, till you overtook me. 
 
 " Perhaps, if I had my way, you never should 
 overtake me. I grant you that. But it is just 
 possible I might not be let to have my way; 
 and I recognize that, too. 
 
 " If you come into the tree-house to-morrow 
 
 evening, after Father is done with you, there 
 
 will be a moon and Job and perhaps a girl. 
 
 And you may put the ring where it belongs. 
 
 "For I am 
 
 " Your penitent 
 
 " MARNA. 
 
 "P.S. That is, if I don't change my mind 
 by that time. I warn you, I 'm capable of it. 
 
 " P.P.S. Job is too jealous for anything. 
 He positively sulks when I mention you by 
 name. I don't suppose you noticed how he 
 growled when you kissed my chin that evening. 
 I am glad you don't do it lately, for I think he 
 might snap at you and hurt you. He does n't 
 look formidable, I own, but that is the very kind 
 that does the most harm in men and dogs."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 63 
 
 " THOU dearest ! It was Eden in the tree- 
 house. And I wear thy ruby ring. 
 
 "Thy 
 
 " MARNA. 
 
 " P.S. Did you ever dream of such a moon 
 in the wildest and dearest dream you ever had ? 
 I never did. It swam in a new heaven; and 
 we we were in a new earth ; and every flower 
 in the garden needed a new name. My heart 
 was a Child (with a big C) sitting at the feet of 
 the garden, as (you said) your love knelt down 
 at mine. Every flower was taller than I the 
 haughty fleur-de-lis, and the tender white roses, 
 and even the modest pansies, and the little, plain 
 candytuft, that looks like daily life and pleasant 
 duty they all seemed to tower above me, like 
 the flowers of a strange country of which I did 
 not know the botany. Love, I think, is flora 
 without a botany. You cannot name a feeling, 
 and classify it, when you love. It would escape 
 you, and you, 
 
 too late, 
 Under its solemn fillet see the scorn. 
 
 I could not speak, out in the tree-house, as you 
 did. My lips trembled too much. And when 
 yours touched them, they did but tremble more.
 
 64 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I was afraid I should cry truly I was all 
 the time. 
 
 " Alas ! you are a man, and you cannot under- 
 stand what I mean. But the ruby understands. 
 That is the nature of a ruby : it knows every- 
 thing about love, and something about a woman. 
 
 " MARNA, Prisoner." 
 
 "Mv DEAR JAILER: I heard a story to-day. 
 Senator Gray told it at lunch, and I meant 
 to tell you it this evening, but, somehow, I 
 did n't. 
 
 "A young medical student loved a girl, and 
 became betrothed to her. (I like that word 
 ' betrothal,' as I told you. Father knew a great 
 poet, once, who announced to his friends 'the 
 betrothal of my daughter.' Nobody ever spoke 
 of that girl as ' engaged ' after that !) So my 
 medical student loved a girl, and no, on con- 
 sideration, he became engaged. 
 
 "You and I, if you please, are betrothed. 
 But I am sure the fine and stately word would 
 blush to own that man, though he loved the girl, 
 after his fashion, and she was a sweet, womanly 
 girl I know about the family. And so he 
 went abroad to finish his studies on the Conti- 
 nent. There he dissected and experimented, and 
 went through the modern laboratories, and came
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 65 
 
 out of them and back to his own land, and went 
 to see the girl. 
 
 " And when she asked him what was the mat- 
 ter, and why he was so changed, and what gave 
 his eyes that new, cold look, he said : 
 
 " 'In all my studies I have not found love. I 
 have dissected and experimented, and been 
 through the laboratories. I have searched, and I 
 do not find anything that can be called love. I 
 have dissected a great many brains and hearts, and 
 I have drawn conclusions. I have come across 
 some points in toxicology, and I have reason 
 to believe I am on the track of a new method 
 of antisepsis but I have not discovered 
 love. I am beginning to think that there 
 is no such thing. It cannot be proved. My 
 scalpel has never touched it. My micro- 
 scope has never seen it. I am forced to the 
 conclusion that it does not exist. It cannot be 
 proved.' 
 
 " ' Very well,' said the girl ; 4 if you cannot 
 prove the existence of love, I can.' 
 
 " ' Prove it to me ! ' cried the young man, 
 anxiously, for he really liked the girl. * I shall 
 be under obligations to you if you can convince 
 me of the existence of love.' 
 
 " ' You will excuse me,' said the girl. 
 ' Good-by.' So they shook hands, and he went
 
 66 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 back to his physiological laboratories, where he 
 is experimenting and dissecting to this day. 
 
 " But the girl took a Sunday-school class and 
 joined the Associated Charities. 
 
 " I thought you would enjoy that story. Dear, 
 I thought I loved you when you said you liked 
 my looks by the moonlight, in my Mayflower 
 dress. But I love you more now than I did 
 then. 
 
 "It is the most curious thing the moment 
 I am away from you I want to sit right down 
 and write a note to you. I am glad you feel 
 the same way. I have quite a pile of them, all 
 locked up, because Job chews them so. He 
 seems to know they are yours, and takes the 
 most violent aversion to them. One night he 
 tore that one to pieces do you remember"? 
 the one I told you I did n't just exactly like. 
 I don't mean, of course, that it was n't quite a 
 right letter. One reason I like you so much is 
 because you are such a gentleman. But, some- 
 how, it made me feel as if I wanted to go and 
 show it to my mother, and she is dead, and I 
 could n't do it. Job bit that note all up, so 
 I had to burn it; there was n't a legible word 
 left in it. Perhaps I am a little bit of a Puritan, 
 as you say. But I can't help it. I am born
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 67 
 
 that way. I like to be loved finely if you 
 know what I mean; and perhaps I like to be 
 loved quietly. I think you must know, because 
 nobody can be finer than you, or more quiet, 
 either, when you feel like it. Sometimes I 
 think there are two of you, and the other one is 
 strong and masterful, and rides over things and 
 people and feelings, and has its own way at any 
 cost. Forgive me, Dear; perhaps I should not 
 say these things. But you know there are two 
 of me also, and one girl stands off and judges 
 the other girl and sometimes looks on at you 
 as if you were not mine, but belonged to some 
 other woman. I don't think I am as fond of a 
 masterful man, not just of his mere masterful- 
 ness, as most girls are. It does n't seem to con- 
 fuse me, or make me see things differently. If 
 we were up in a captive balloon together, over 
 the tops of the elms, in an easterly storm, and 
 you said, ' Come ! We will free the balloon and 
 ride on the storm,' I suppose there are girls who 
 would put their arms about your neck and say, 
 ' Yes, if you wish it, we will ride on the storm/ 
 But I should probably say: 
 
 '"Dana, let 's keep our heads and go down.' 
 " Then, if you were good and went down, and 
 we came home safely and I should be a little 
 faint, and all tired out (for I think I should),
 
 68 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 and you carried me into the house, and I saw 
 how noble you were, and strong, and grand, I 
 should oh, my dear! I would make it up to you. 
 "Once you told me I was cold to you. I 
 was sorry. But I did n't say anything. I only 
 wished you had understood. I think I am writ- 
 ing this note to try to make you understand. 
 " Your 
 
 "MARNA, Betrothed." 
 
 " Bar Harbor, July the twenty-fifth. 
 " MY DEAR AND DISTANT : Now, for the first 
 time in my life, I know what distance means. 
 I thought I knew, of course. The curious 
 thing about inexperience is that it does not rec- 
 ognize its master in experience ; perhaps, if it 
 did, it would cease to be inexperience. That re- 
 minds me that you told me once that I spelled 
 love with a small / instead of with a large one 
 like most women, and that you should never be 
 satisfied with mine until you had taught me to 
 read it with a capital L, and another word with 
 a capital M. I think you said it was the very 
 essence of loving, in a woman, to spell her feel- 
 ing properly and that, as long as she did not, 
 she was still half unwon. I wonder how you 
 happen to think you know what is the essence 
 of loving in a woman?
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 69 
 
 " At least, I have got so far as this : I don't 
 know but I am beginning to spell Love with a 
 capital L. For it is the dreadful truth, Dana 
 Herwin, that I miss you I really do. I should 
 not have thought that I would at all; I mean, 
 not like this not to be uncomfortable, you 
 know, and to come so near being unhappy that 
 you cease to be happy. I think do you want 
 to know what I think 1 ? And I feel but you 
 are not to know what I feel. In the morning, 
 when I wake, I turn and look at the sea, between 
 Mrs. Gray's pretty curtains (they are white and 
 sheer, with green seaweed over them), and I say: 
 * All that ocean and land are between us : sixteen 
 hours of it by boat, and over ten by train.' In the 
 evening, when the rest are canoeing, or chatting 
 on piazzas, I like to get by myself. I make all 
 sorts of excuses to be alone which is not nat- 
 ural to me, I 'd have you understand, for, though 
 I am a Wilderness Girl, I am a clannish girl ; I 
 like my tribe, and I don't mope. And, when I 
 am alone, there is the most humiliating monotony 
 in my thoughts. First it is your hair I see the 
 way it curls; I look at all the straight-haired 
 men I meet, and wonder what kinds of women 
 love them. Then your eyes I see your eyes 
 flashing and darkening, like that revolving light 
 I spoke of, and missing a revolution, and dark-
 
 70 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 ening again before they blaze. Then I try to 
 make out how your mouth looks without me 
 but I never see your mouth. Do you think I 
 should love you as much if you shaved? Let 
 me believe that I should love you more ! Then 
 your voice but somehow your voice escapes 
 me ; and with it a part of you escapes me, too. 
 I am a little confused when it comes to your 
 voice. I only seem to get it reading ' Rufus 
 Choate ' to Father. Dear Father ! I know you 
 are good to him, for he has the most unreason- 
 able habit of missing me ; it is quite confirmed, 
 and that is why I make so few trips. Thanks 
 to him, I never can be called a visiting young 
 lady. 
 
 " But he took a notion about my coming to 
 Senator Gray's. He said I looked I think it 
 was ' transparent ' some preposterous word. I 
 suppose it comes of my feeling strange and 
 changed exhilarated all the time. Yet that 
 seems too low a word. Call it exalted, rather. 
 There 's been a good deal written by poets and 
 other uncomfortable people that I begin to un- 
 derstand, while yet I know that I do not com- 
 prehend it. Now, the way they have of classify- 
 ing Love (with a capital, please observe, sir) as 
 if it were to be found at a first-class vintner's that 
 perplexes me; for me it does not intoxicate.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 71 
 
 And if you are disappointed, I am sorry. But 
 perhaps I am what Goethe called a Nature ; if I 
 am, you will accept my Nature as you do every- 
 thing about me, faults and all, and not complain ? 
 You are generous and noble to me, Dana! I 
 never knew how many faults I had until it befell 
 me that I wished to be a very superior girl for 
 your sake. I never felt so sorry and ashamed 
 of them as I have since I began to wish my soul 
 a perfect ruby, like this of yours I wear, 
 deep, deep down, pure fire, and flawless. I won- 
 der do you like my tourmalin *? You never said 
 very much about it (and I could not, somehow, 
 ask you). I know it is a reserved stone, not 
 talking much. It seemed to me shy, like a be- 
 trothed girl's heart; a stone that waits for some- 
 thing, and has the beauty of that which is 
 unexpressed, although quite understood. 
 
 " I think I meant to say something quite dif- 
 ferent a page back. I will look and see. Yes, 
 it was about wines. I suspect I was a little 
 afraid to say it, and so strayed off to jewels, a 
 less fluent subject. My pen has stiffened up 
 on it. 
 
 " Ah, yes, now I know ; it was about the dif- 
 ference between exhilaration and exaltation 
 which seems to me the difference between different 
 kinds of Love. And I believe I began to say:
 
 72 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 If Love is a wine, it is a communion wine, to 
 me, and I taste it on my knees. 
 
 "For I am, Sacredly, 
 
 "YouR MARNA." 
 
 " THOU strongest ! What a ruby is thy love 
 for me ! My letters seem paler than tourmalins 
 beside yours. And yet and yet I am not sure : 
 I think they love you more than they show ; but 
 not more than I hoped you would see without 
 the showing. Try to see ! Try to understand 
 " Your 
 
 " WILDERNESS GIRL IN CHAINS." 
 
 "MY DEAR BOY: I have just got Father's let- 
 ter agreeing to the West Sanchester plan. He 
 says you have closed the lease of the Dowe Cot- 
 tage for him for August and September. He 
 asks me if I would like to have him invite you 
 there for two weeks to stay with us. I am writ- 
 ing him by this mail. I said I would try to put 
 up with it. 
 
 " Mr. Herwin, will you be my father's guest 
 and mine, and the ocean's, for half the month of 
 August, at Sanchester? 
 
 " I hope we shall not quarrel. We never 
 were under the same roof for twenty-four hours.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 73 
 
 Who knows ? I think it is preposterous, the 
 way I continue to miss you. 
 
 " I am Your loving 
 
 " LONELINESS." 
 
 " DANA dear, I 'm coming home. Really, I 
 cannot stand it another day. Don't flatter your- 
 self for I am convinced that I flatter you all that 
 you can bear without spoiling. 
 
 " Mrs. Gray has been talking to me. She 
 says more marriages are ruined by a woman's 
 spoiling a man than there are by a man's neglect- 
 ing a woman. I told her I failed to see how 
 either event was at all possible. She said, ' My 
 dear, you are like your mother.' 
 
 " Half the Wilderness Girl seems to be blotted 
 out of me by separation from you. I have 
 missed you too much. If I surprise you by being 
 too civilized, after all, where shall we end 1 ? 
 Our betrothal would become a tame and com- 
 monplace affair, and I know better than you do 
 how much that would disappoint you. 
 
 " You write me such love-letters as I think no 
 woman ever had. I am ashamed of my poor, 
 pale things beside them. But, Dear, yours hush 
 me like your lips on mine. And perhaps it is 
 because I feel so much that I can say so little. 
 " Your own MARNA.
 
 74 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " P.S. Job is gladder than anything to be 
 coming home. I told him we were going, and 
 he has sat upon my trunk and begged ever since. 
 Job totally disapproves of Bar Harbor. It ' com- 
 bines so much ' wretchedness for him that I quite 
 pity him. He never went on a visit before, and 
 is n't at all accustomed to leash life. He has 
 chewed up five beautiful skye ribbon leashes 
 since we came. They are about all he eats, and 
 he has grown quite thin. Then, Mrs. Gray is 
 one of the dogless people, and although she in- 
 vited him, she is not accustomed to skye terriers 
 sleeping in her guest-rooms. I brought on his 
 basket, but I saw at once it would have to stand 
 in the sewing-room nights. I was so thankful it 
 was n't the stable that I was quite reconciled. 
 But Job never has been. The first night he 
 howled till 2 A.M., and don't you ever tell ! 
 I had to go and sneak him into my own bed to 
 keep him still. He curled in my neck and 
 sobbed like a terrified baby. But the next night 
 he only cried till twelve, and since then he has 
 been a -perfect guest. Nobody ever knew he bit 
 the Secretary of War on the heel because he 
 danced with me once. And out of a gallantry 
 which, I admit, was rather fine in him, the 
 Secretary of War never told. He is a wid- 
 ower, you know, and has been visiting Mr. Gray.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 75 
 
 And Mr. Gray thought it was the cat who car- 
 ried the rat into the waste-paper basket in the 
 library, and buried it in philanthropic petitions. 
 
 " P.P.S. The Secretary of War wished me 
 to send you his congratulations. But he did 
 suggest that I ask you whether you were an ad- 
 vocate of vivisection, or expected to become so 
 after marriage. 
 
 " Job won't let him come within twenty feet 
 of me. And by to-morrow evening I shall be 
 how near to you *? We will begin with twenty 
 feet, sir ; and then we '11 see 
 
 " Your foolish, too joyous 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 August the second. 
 
 I HAVE always said I would not come to San- 
 chester unless I could have the Dowe Cottage, 
 and here we are. I have loved and envied it all 
 my life ; it is the one perfect situation on the 
 East Shore. I don't care a wild rose for any of 
 the other places about here. I wonder how 
 many strangers visiting the Cape have seen this 
 house from the cars, and said, " Now, if I could 
 have that ! " 
 
 The house is well enough, but it is n't the 
 
 O ' 
 
 house that I care for; it is the dream of shore 
 
 6
 
 76 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 and sea that goes with it. The water is broken 
 into gentleness by the shape of the cove ; it does 
 not rave, but sighs ; the curve of the beach is as 
 delicate as a lady's lip ; there is the something 
 too bewitching not to be elusive about the shapes 
 of the rocks and the foreground of old fishermen 
 and their old dories pushing off, and the nets; it 
 all seems to assume difference each time that you 
 look; and there is a weir here this summer. It 
 is going to be so beautiful that I perceive it will 
 turn my head. I waked at sunrise to-day and 
 ran to my window, and sat there for an hour, 
 drowned in the daybreak, drunken with beauty. 
 There is rose-color in my room, and sky-color in 
 the guest-room, and pearl tint in the little room 
 between where I am to put Maggie, and all the 
 rest of the cottage is green and white, or white 
 and green, absolutely nothing else. It makes 
 the house seem like one wave, tossed, I think, 
 into foam, except just here, up where I am, and 
 the foam has the colors of sunrise and sunset 
 like that wave beyond the weir, living and dying 
 like a rainbow as I write. 
 
 I am so happy that I am afraid. It is as if I 
 were a wave alive and strong this minute, 
 but sure to be broken and spent the next. Hap- 
 piness is a tide : it carries you only a little 
 way at a time; but you have covered a vast
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 77 
 
 space before you know that you are moving 
 at all. 
 
 I cannot think who wrote those lines that I 
 have always liked : 
 
 By the law of the land and the ocean, 
 I summon the tide eternal 
 
 To flow for you and me. . . . 
 
 When shall the flood-tide be ? 
 
 I wonder if misery is like this, too a great ebb ; 
 the going out slowly of joy, wave by wave, till 
 half the sea is emptied and all the shore is dry. 
 Or is it one shock and cataclysm of nature, 
 plunging over you at a crash the tidal wave 
 of experience ? It is hard for me to-day to be- 
 lieve that I can ever be unhappy; or, indeed, 
 that any other young, live, loving girl in the 
 world can be. I am so happy that I find I can- 
 not do anything at all but sing or pray; but I 
 should not tell any person that, not even Dana. 
 I don't think he would understand. When I 
 sing, my song is half a prayer, and if I prayed, 
 my prayer would be something like a song. It 
 makes a strange medley may the Lord forgive 
 me ! and I think He will. 
 
 Our Father who art in Heaven 
 " Why not to Heaven ? " quo' she.
 
 78 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Dana will be here in an hour. The 6:20 
 train is just leaving town. He has been delayed 
 by his first law case. Job and I must dress at 
 once, and go to the station to meet him. I think 
 I shall wear my white India; he seems to like 
 it. And then any of Job's ribbons will go with 
 it. I shall take the chiffon sunshade the one 
 he called " such pretty nonsense." I have the 
 most preposterous affection for that sunshade. 
 There 's one thing that perplexes me, and as 
 long as he will never, never see the Accepted 
 Manuscript, I may as well say what it is just now 
 and here. There was once a Wilderness Girl I 
 knew. What has become of her"? Where 
 shall I turn to find her*? Whither has she fled 
 from me ? Is she melting out on the tide, wave 
 by wave? Shall I lose her altogether in the 
 sea? 
 
 1 A.M. 
 
 I DON'T know why I cannot sleep, for I am very 
 happy. Perhaps it is because I am so happy, or 
 perhaps it is being happy in so new a way that 
 keeps me staring out here at the sea, with the 
 gas low, and the curtains streaming straight out 
 from the window in the strong southeasterly, the 
 way they do nights at the seaside and never any- 
 where else. They fill like sails, and the room 
 seems a ship. I write a little by the dim light,
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 79 
 
 for I don't feel like turning it up, and then 
 I stare a little, and then I write a little more. 
 
 Maggie, in her gray room, is sleeping stoutly. 
 And beyond, in the sky-blue, sea-blue guest-room 
 
 I wonder if he is asleep, too ? To be to- 
 gether in the same house, so near each other, is a 
 strange and solemn thing. 
 
 Father said to-night: "You are as thoughtful 
 of me as a son." 
 
 Father is very fond of him. And I I love 
 him so much that I begin to be afraid of him. 
 I wish he were not quite so superb to look at. 
 Sometimes I wish he were just a plain man, so 
 that I could stand off and get an impression of 
 him that would have a certain value. He daz- 
 zles me. We all have our own forms of pagan- 
 ism, and worship them in secret, being but half 
 Christianized for their sakes. I think I have said 
 before that my paganism is omnipotent beauty. 
 
 . . . Thou glorious ! Here alone in my rose- 
 colored room, nothing but this white paper being 
 witness, my soul turns to thee as if thou wert a 
 god upon a cloud. To thee I swerve. Some- 
 thing within me cries, " Worship ! " I struggle 
 to keep my feet. 
 
 Stay you the rather at mine. When you 
 kneeled to me this evening, I battled with my- 
 self, that you should not know how I longed to
 
 8o CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 stretch down my hands and lift you up and drop 
 before you. You called me all the goddess 
 names. And I, an adoring girl, accepted them. 
 
 Now Nature avenges herself upon me, here 
 alone, with this mute white paper, in the sacred 
 night; and I write, for you do not know it, and 
 because you shall never know it I write you a 
 note which you are never to see. 
 
 "My Love: I am yours utterly. 
 
 " Mama." 
 
 " MY DEAR DANA : It seems quite out of the 
 course of nature not to write a letter to you 
 every day. I am too much in the habit of it to 
 stop too suddenly. So I send this line by Mag- 
 gie. I am a little tired this morning, I did not 
 sleep very well, for Job sniffed all about the room 
 for mice, and upset his pink finger-bowl on some 
 slippers and things of mine ; he is n't at home 
 yet in the Dowe Cottage, and, if you don't 
 mind, I won't see you till luncheon. Father 
 will need you in a thousand ways, and you might 
 call on the Curtis girls, if time hangs heavily. 
 I 'm sure Minnie Curtis will be glad to see you. 
 She always was. And I shall get downstairs by 
 degrees, perhaps by half-past twelve. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " MARNA."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 81 
 
 IT is a week since he came to the Wave. (That 
 is what we have agreed to call this house.) I 
 used to think I knew what it was to be happy. 
 Now I see that I had not studied the grammar 
 of joy. Dana says : 
 
 " You have not learned the alphabet yet. 
 You play truant too often." 
 
 " Why don't you keep me in school, then *? " 
 I said. " That is your business." 
 
 He made me no answer at all, and that is what 
 makes me uncomfortable. When he speaks I 
 know the worst. But when he only looks at 
 me, I am afraid of him and of what is coming. 
 He has a terrible way of biding his time. I 
 never know when he is done with a subject. 
 
 There is something that never was on sea or 
 land about these days. I seem afloat, all the 
 time, between the ocean and the sky ; and if my 
 feet touch the earth, they spurn it, as if they 
 had wings, and I go whirling off and up. Now 
 I am a creature of the air; height is my 
 element ; flight is the condition of being, and I 
 flee. Then I am flung down swiftly, and find 
 myself a creature of the sea; the deeps are my 
 home ; to be engulfed is the condition of being, 
 and I drown. There are moments when I am 
 tossed and driven blindly, and traverse vast 
 spaces of the under-sea, visit sunken wrecks, float
 
 82 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 past buried treasure ; and then I am hurled up 
 and back, and thrown panting on the shore. 
 Then I perceive that I am a weed upon a wave, 
 and whithersoever the wave wills, there am I 
 borne, and because I am a weed I do not buffet 
 the wave, but love it, and it driveth me, for it is 
 a wave. 
 
 But I do not show these things that I perceive 
 to him. 
 
 For the princess hid from him. 
 
 Of flying or drowning we do not speak together. 
 And he calls me a truant of the heart. What 
 paradise is betrothal ! I would be his promised 
 wife forever. I do not think that Adam and 
 Eve in Eden were married for a long time. And 
 if they had never been married at all, Paradise 
 would have been eternal. There can be no 
 doubt of that. 
 
 August the twelfth. 
 
 A TERRIBLE thing has happened. Paradise is 
 lost. So soon, too soon, I am exiled from my 
 Eden; and each soul's Eden is its own. We 
 may exchange tastes, habits, characters even, in 
 this world : our Edens are untransferable ; and 
 an angel with a frowning smile stands guard at 
 the gates of mine, already, to bar me out. That 
 frowning smile is the nature of a man. Dana 
 wishes me to marry him the first of October.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 83 
 
 August the thirteenth. 
 
 I SAID he had not done with the subject 
 that day he looked at me and did not talk; 
 but I did not expect anything so formidable 
 as this. 
 
 He has had an uncle die that is the short of 
 it; he went away for two days to the funeral. 
 When he came back he brought a piece of dis- 
 mal news and this preposterous proposition. It 
 seems that this uncle must needs go and leave 
 him all the money he had. I don't fancy it is 
 much I would n't ask. But, whatever it is, 
 Dana feels at liberty to marry on it. With what 
 there is of Mother's settled on me we should 
 have enough without depending on Father, 
 it seems; and Dana thinks I ought to love him 
 enough to be willing to live somehow, if not as 
 I am used to living and so on. I did not tell 
 him that I would be willing to live anyhow 
 I don't think that at all necessary. I did not 
 say how little I think about money, and 
 things like that : he knows. I did not say that 
 I could starve and be quite happy. I said that 
 I did not wish to be married. 
 
 August the fourteenth. 
 
 HE says that does not make any difference. He 
 says it has nothing to do with the subject.
 
 84 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 August the fifteenth. 
 
 I HAVE told him that if he wants to be married 
 in October he must find some other girl to marry 
 him. We have had our first quarrel. He is 
 hurt and unhappy, and has gone to town. I 
 cannot see why I need feel called upon to miss 
 him quite so much not so preposterously. I 
 should not mind if I missed him only to a reason- 
 able extent. He has telephoned that he is not 
 coming out to-night. James answered the tele- 
 phone. I was out watching Job catch grass- 
 hoppers, an exhilarating, not to say exalted, oc- 
 cupation. It was wet, too, and I came in too 
 soppy and moppy for anything. There is a fog 
 to-day. It wipes out the world as if it were a 
 vast sponge. Happiness, I think, is only a little 
 white writing on a slate : it looks as if it would 
 last forever, but it is only chalk ; the first touch 
 expunges it. My slate is gone suddenly blank 
 and black. 
 
 Two of our old fishermen are putting out in 
 their old dories from the beach. They melt into 
 the fog like thoughts. There ! they are gone 
 out utterly. They are so old that I cannot even 
 wonder how they feel. Age seems to me like a 
 mighty mist into which people dip and vanish 
 slowly, and between them and the sympathy of 
 youth an unfathomable fog shuts in. I stand
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 85 
 
 before the mist of years. What does it hold for 
 or withhold from me *? Dana and I seem like 
 frail boats, feeling our way into a dim destiny. 
 My love stretches beyond his longing, a myste- 
 rious sea. Shall I ever be old and he ? And 
 will love mature as far as life does ? If it did 
 not, if it does not, better that it be and remain 
 forever young, a mist-ideal in a blur of morning 
 light. 
 
 rfwo hours later. 
 
 INTO the record of these admirable and doubtless 
 noble sentiments a sound cut sharply. It was 
 Job barking the one particular individual bark 
 which he reserves, out of the variety of his 
 nature, for Dana Herwin a chromatic bark 
 of modulated love and jealousy, of welcome 
 and of distrust. I ran down. He stood in 
 the green-and-white hall. No person besides 
 ourselves was there. When he touched me, 
 for he took me to his heart as if he never meant 
 to let me go, Job growled, and then he 
 cried like a hurt child, and crawled under the 
 sofa and sobbed. I never knew anybody sob 
 like Job. 
 
 And Mr. Herwin did not say a word about 
 marrying in October. I think he has forgotten 
 all about it. I am quite happy.
 
 86 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " MY DEAR DANA : But I thought you had 
 got over that. How can, how can you bring it all 
 up again"? Yes, I know I was very happy last 
 evening, and I did n't much mind your knowing 
 it. So I said, and so I did, as you say. But that 
 did not mean that I am ready to be your wife. 
 It is so hard for a man to understand a woman 
 it is so hard for you to understand me that I 
 do not think I ought ever to be your wife at all. 
 I am convinced we should make each other very 
 unhappy. As to marrying you in October, pray 
 regard that point as irrevocably settled. I can- 
 not consider the question for a moment. All 
 the battle blood of my tribe is surging behind 
 me, and I am 
 
 "Your 
 
 " WILDERNESS GIRL." 
 
 "On, I love you yes. I have said it. I 
 cannot unsay it. I cannot unlove, and that is 
 the pitiful part of it. But I do not wish to be 
 your wife in October. You would carry no 
 willing captive to your wedding-day." 
 
 " I NEVER knew a person with such a relentless 
 will. I should think, if you loved me as you 
 profess to do, you would have some compassion 
 on me."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 87 
 
 " HAVE it your own way, then, if you must. 
 Now you have got Father on your side I am 
 perfectly discouraged. I am worn out with this 
 conflict. I don't care whether I marry you this 
 year or next, or in October, or in April, or now, 
 or never. I am tired out. I am tired of the 
 whole subject. I wish you to understand that I 
 yield out of sheer exhaustion. 
 
 " Take me up, fling me over your shoulder, 
 carry me away to your own tribe, then, if you 
 insist upon it and start all the elements of my 
 nature that are incomprehensible to you into 
 war." 
 
 " MY DEAR DANA : Oh, I don't care what you 
 give me. Why should you give me anything 
 at all ? That seems to me a foolish custom. I 
 will not be a bride fettered with pearls and dia- 
 monds, and flaunting her chains before gods and 
 men. I will have nothing from you but my 
 wedding-ring. I suppose I can't decently refuse 
 that. I think I have told you before I don't 
 care when. If it has got to be at all, one time is 
 as good as another." 
 
 " YES, oh, yes ; I don't care. The last week 
 of September is no worse than the first week of 
 October, that I can see. You and Father must
 
 88 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 arrange it between you. Really, I don't care to 
 be bothered with these details. 
 
 " The only thing I insist on is that you shall 
 find some suitable person to stay with Father, if 
 you are going to turn him out of ' his own hired 
 house ' (as Longfellow used to call it) and send 
 him back home alone, and keep me here with- 
 out him. I warn you frankly: if you find me 
 vanished any evening, you need not be surprised. 
 As it looks to me now, the station is abnormally 
 convenient, and, in fact, if I did n't know that I 
 could melt away from you any time, I do not 
 think, in fact I am quite sure, I could not 
 possibly make up my mind to stay alone in the 
 Dowe Cottage with you. 
 
 " Who ever invented the word ' honeymoon ' *? 
 Some man, I am sure. He never tasted myrrh in 
 it. There is nothing in this world I find it so 
 hard to understand as the nature of a man. The 
 mysteries of sin, suffering, and immortality are 
 quite frank and open beside it. 
 
 " I am sorry if you are disappointed that I do 
 not write love-letters to you in these days. Pray, 
 what did you expect? I am dumb, and thou 
 didst it. MARNA." 
 
 " September the third. 
 
 " MY DEAR DANA : Certainly we shall be glad 
 to see you whenever you come out. I quite
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 89 
 
 think it best that you should be somewhere else, 
 and rather come out, than stay out, just now. 
 Probably we shall see enough of each other after 
 the twentieth. Yours, 
 
 "MARNA TRENT. 
 
 " P.S. Oh, forgive me ! I do not mean to be 
 cruel. I do not feel cruel. It seems to me as if 
 you were the cruel one of us two. It would have 
 been so easy to go on as we were, betrothed and 
 blessed. We could have lived so for a long, 
 long time, and been quite happy. I cannot see 
 why you were not contented. I was. Paradise 
 ' was paradise enow ' for me." 
 
 September the twelfth. 
 
 I HAVE not seen Dana for a week. I suppose it 
 was rather uncivil of me, but I wrote him not to 
 come. I find it impossible to entertain him in 
 these days. He seems to me like company. 
 Father and Job and I are happier by ourselves. 
 I must admit it is celestial weather. The ocean 
 blinds me and the breakers deafen me. There 
 always is something about September sunshine, 
 but this September sunshine has the divine na- 
 ture. It is working an awful miracle. I dare 
 not think of it ! Yet, in truth, I think of nothing 
 else.
 
 go CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " September the fourteenth. 
 
 " To INA IN HEAVEN : Ina ! Ina ! Here we 
 come to the parting of the ways between spirit 
 and flesh ; girl ghost and live wife, how can we 
 stay together, or be ever to each other what we 
 were ? You you would have been my brides- 
 maid, Dear; you would have worn, I think, a 
 robin's-egg-blue silk mull. How dainty you 
 would have been ! I am not to have any brides- 
 maid, Ina. No one shall take your place. I 
 don't care for any wedding; it is all to be by 
 ourselves, at home; we are going over the day 
 before a very still little wedding, only a few 
 people; and Father stays, but Dana and I, and 
 Job, are coming back to the Wave. Ina, I am 
 not glad, oh, I am not glad ! Ina ! In all this 
 world of live people nobody understands 
 
 " Your poor MARNA." 
 
 " September the sixteenth. 
 
 "DEAR DANA: Leave me alone. Oh, leave 
 me to my own nature for these last days and 
 hours ! What it is not in yours to comprehend 
 let it be yours to reverence. I stand apart from 
 you, and you seem to me a vast space away from 
 me, like an alien king of an unseen country who 
 has threatened me and mine. Though I make 
 you unhappy, I must speak the truth to you, for
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 91 
 
 Truth is the king of kings, and outranks your 
 throne or mine, or that on which we are fated to 
 sit crowned together. You ask me do I not love 
 you as I thought I did, that I treat you as I 
 choose to do, in this miracle September? 
 
 " On my soul, I cannot answer you, for from 
 my soul I do not know. I thought I loved 
 you ; and I was happy when you were near me. 
 Now I know not if I love you ; I only know 
 I fear you, and I wish the width of the spaces 
 between the stars and suns were distance be- 
 tween us. 
 
 " I feel a magic circle drawn around me. If 
 you cross, you cross it at your peril, for, volun- 
 tary sorcerer, I stand within it. I have nothing 
 for you nothing; I belong to myself. I have 
 fled to the wilderness of Womanhood, where no 
 man ever sets his foot. If you pursue me, I can- 
 not say what I shall do. I warn you ! I warn 
 you ! It is nothing to me, and less than nothing, 
 what other girls do the days before they are mar- 
 ried to other men. I told you I was a Wilder- 
 ness Girl; and now you find it out, you are 
 surprised and shocked. I would have you know, 
 sir, that a woman is to be obeyed when she 
 makes her will known to the man who loves her. 
 I am not sure that I love you enough to marry 
 you. And, honestly, it does not trouble me that
 
 92 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I give you pain. I tell you, Dana Herwin 
 oh, but I cannot tell, I cannot tell you ! You 
 would not understand." 
 
 " September the seventeenth. 
 
 " MOTHER, I am not fit to be married, I am 
 behaving so badly! If you were not a ghost, I 
 think I should be a better girl I should act 
 like other girls. And you would teach me how. 
 Mother, it is the holy truth that I packed my 
 bag to-night and ran away. I took the train 
 and went to town, the late train, and I 
 meant to send him word that I would not marry 
 anybody, for I could never do it. 
 
 " And when I got to town I was frightened at 
 what I had done, for I thought it would trouble 
 Father, and I came back again upon the mid- 
 night train alone ; and it rained, for there is a 
 southeaster, and I got off at the station, crying, 
 in the wet. And, oh, Mother, there he stood 
 the Man ! His face was white, and his hand 
 shook, and he did not speak at all. He took me 
 home, and in at the side door, and called 
 Maggie, and told me to go up-stairs, and did not 
 trouble me to try to kiss me ; but he had such a 
 look that I felt ashamed, and I thought you 
 would be ashamed of me, Mother. So I confess 
 to you. For I have promised that I will marry
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 93 
 
 him in two days and three nights more. And 
 I am 
 
 " Your unmothered and bewildered 
 
 " DAUGHTER." 
 
 " September the nineteenth. 
 
 " D/AR DANA : I cannot possibly see you this 
 evening. You will excuse me, I am sure. I 
 have some writing to do, and, besides, I don't 
 feel like it. Can't you go and call on Minnie 
 Curtis *? I should think she might amuse you. 
 " Hurriedly yours, 
 
 " MARK A TRENT." 
 
 " October the fifth. 
 
 "To MY HUSBAND: Oh, I admit it! I take 
 the first excuse I have to write the word. You 
 have never given me a chance before. I do not 
 think we have been apart three hours have 
 we ? in these fifteen days. Now you are to be 
 three hours in town. It seems a long time. 
 Twenty minutes are gone. I have been sitting 
 here, in the rose-colored room, staring at the 
 clock. I have been trying to decide where I 
 shall put this note to surprise and please you. 
 Dear, I like to please you! But, indeed, I do 
 not always know how to make you believe that 
 I do. You are very patient and gentle with me, 
 and I I love you !
 
 94 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " I think I will pin it on your cushion with 
 one of the pearl butterflies I wore to fasten my 
 wedding lace. I was glad you noticed the but- 
 terflies. I am glad you liked the way I looked. 
 This is part of the miracle. I begin to care so 
 much too much for what you like. But 
 now that I try to tell you so, I find that words 
 flit away from me like butterflies no, no ! not 
 that. Rather are my words moths, and they 
 advance and retreat, and circle and waver about 
 the light of my love for you, and dash them 
 headlong, and perish in it. For my love is like 
 a tall, strong candle on an altar; it burns steadily 
 and sacredly before the holy of holies. I know 
 that I have but begun to love you. I know 
 that I shall love you more I fear to know how 
 I shall love you ! 
 
 "For I am 
 
 "YouR WIFE." 
 
 tfhe Second Note. 
 
 "DARLING: Will you mind two notes from 
 me ? I cannot seem to find any other way of 
 enduring this separation. I will slip this one 
 under your pillow, so you will find it later than 
 the pin-cushion one. See ! I put one of the 
 roses you brought me last night within the note.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 95 
 
 I liked the rose ; it is just the color of this room. 
 I am writing to tell you that I lose myself with- 
 out you. I never knew three such hours in my 
 life. I have stared the clock out of countenance: 
 only eighty-five minutes are gone yet. I cannot 
 understand myself; I am quite perplexed. Thou 
 strong and tender ! Come quickly and explain 
 me to myself! 
 
 " Thou dear Love ! My love waits to learn 
 the way of loving from thine own ; a bud that 
 shall know an eternal blossom, a story that shall 
 be read without an end. I tried to tell you so 
 last evening; I could not do it. 
 
 " The sea is white and still this morning. 
 The fishermen are singing at their nets. Fires 
 are on all the hearths ; the sun is warm and deep. 
 I thought September was the bridal month. 
 Now I see it is October. Then I think we shall 
 know it is November. Eden waits in every 
 weather. All down the calendar, 
 
 I see Joy smiling. 
 
 " Dear, I cannot tell you unless I write it, and 
 I feel that I must tell you, for I owe it to your 
 patience and gentleness to tell you what a foolish, 
 petulant girl she was that Wilderness Girl. 
 I whisper you a secret. She will not trouble you
 
 96 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 any more. She has floated out upon the tide 
 of love, 
 
 Beyond the utmost purple rim. 
 
 The forest gave her, but the ocean claims her ; 
 she is gone forever. And I am 
 
 " MARNA, your Wife." 
 
 Note. 
 
 " OH, teach me how to make you happy ! 
 I have everything to learn, I know. But believe 
 me that I care for nothing else for nothing in 
 this world except your happiness. I will be the 
 most docile and the gladdest scholar that man 
 ever had. 
 
 " See, I have almost written this first separa- 
 tion away. I will confess: if I had not written, 
 I should have cried. Oh, you will be home in 
 half an hour ! 
 
 " Don't be jealous, but I just went up and 
 kissed the clock. 
 
 " MARNA, Wife."
 
 Ill 
 
 November the third. 
 
 f AHERE is no doubt about it that happiness 
 A is an occupation. When I see how long 
 it is since I have added anything worth adding 
 to the Accepted Manuscript, and when I try to 
 define to myself what it is that gives me such a 
 sense of being busy all the time, I find that it is 
 scarcely more than the existence of joy. What 
 I have lost is the leisure of loneliness; what I 
 have gained is the avocation of love. 
 
 They teach us that only in heaven can we ex- 
 pect to know happiness. It is not true ! I sum- 
 mon mine a singing witness in the courts of 
 life. I fling down the glove of joy, a challenge 
 to such dismal doctrine. There are whole weeks 
 when I live in poems, I breathe in song. There 
 are entire days when I float in color, and seem 
 to be set free in space, as a bird is, knowing the 
 earth and loving it, but citizen of the skies and 
 homing to them. I fall asleep as if I were a 
 sunset, and I wake as if I were a sunrise, so near 
 
 97
 
 98 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 am I to Nature, so much a part of her beatitude. 
 Nature is joy I perceive that now. I used to 
 think she was duty. How wonderful it is to live 
 in harmony with her, out of sheer joyousness 
 not conscript, but volunteer within her mighty 
 and beautiful forces! 
 
 I am always reading new chapters in the Story 
 Without an End. Every day I turn a fresh page 
 in the book of love. I did not think that it 
 would be so absorbing. Really, it has plot. 
 For, what is the plot of incident beside that of 
 feeling *? A tame affair, as thoroughly displaced 
 as a piece of sensational fiction by the great drama 
 of the gospels. 
 
 Dana and I have been reading the New Testa- 
 ment together on Sunday evenings. He said 
 yesterday: " What a complete situation!" From 
 a histrionic point of view he thinks the life of 
 Christ the most tremendous and well-balanced 
 plot ever conceived. He admitted that he had 
 forgotten how fine it was. 
 
 " Morally fine, at least," I said. 
 
 "Morally fine, at most,; spiritually, if you 
 will," he answered. He spoke quite soberly for 
 Dana. He is a very merry person; he laughs 
 more easily and more often than I do. I am 
 afraid, sometimes, he thinks me too strenuous. 
 (He said so one day, but I felt so badly that he
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 99 
 
 kissed the word savagely away.) He is not at 
 all religious. Why does this make me feel as if 
 I ought to become so *? I have never thought 
 much about the philosophy of Christianity I 
 mean as a practical matter that had anything in 
 particular to do with myself until lately. 
 
 " You are a sumptuous little pagan," he said to 
 me Saturday. Now, this did not please me, as 
 he seemed to expect. It left a little dust, like 
 ashes of roses, in my heart. I feel as if I had 
 failed him somewhere. 
 
 " I am afraid I am too happy to be religious," 
 I said. 
 
 " Then stay irreligious ! " he cried. The plea 
 of his lips smothered that spark of sacred feeling ; 
 and against the argument of his arms I cannot 
 reason. 
 
 How fearful is the philosophy of a kiss ! 
 When I think of poor girls young, ignorant, 
 all woman and all love I never thought of 
 them before except with a kind of bewildered 
 horror. 
 
 I wonder to anchor to my thought; see, 
 even my thought casts off its moorings as well 
 as my feeling; I seem to be adrift on all sides 
 of my being I wonder if it is in the nature of 
 suffering to make people in so far divine as it is 
 in that of joy to keep them altogether human.
 
 ioo CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I begin to see that there is a conflict as old as the 
 axis of the world. Around its fixed and invisible 
 bar every soul of us revolves so many revolu- 
 tions to an ecstasy, so many to a pang; and the 
 sum and nature of these revolutions is the sum 
 and nature of ourselves. When I am old and 
 sad, shall I turn penitent and think about 
 heaven*? Oh, I am young, I am glad, I am 
 beloved, and I love ! Earth is enough for me, 
 for he is in it. 
 
 IT would be impossible for me to put into words 
 the quality of his consideration for me. It is 
 something ineffable and not to be desecrated by 
 expression. It is my atmosphere. His treat- 
 ment of me is the very devoutness of love. I 
 breathe a devotion for which any tender woman 
 in the world would die. Though I am wife, 
 thus am I goddess, for he deifies me. 
 
 But while his soul looks up to mine 
 My heart lies at his feet. 
 
 The difference is that now I am willing he should 
 know when he has my heart at his feet. Once 
 I kept the secret to myself, and confided it only 
 to this dumb paper. There are some delicate 
 lines in the poem when Radha and Krishna were 
 married the one that begins : 
 
 But when the music of her bangles passed the porch
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 101 
 
 November the seventh. 
 
 MRS. GRAY talked to me a little last week. 
 She said : " My dear, your mother kept your 
 father at her feet. She held him there to the 
 last breath. I tell you a secret, since she cannot. 
 The happiest marriages are those where a wife 
 loves her husband less than he loves her." 
 
 " How many such do you know ? " I asked 
 her, rather hotly, for my cheeks burned. 
 
 She gave me a keen look. 
 
 " You have more knowledge of the world 
 than I supposed," she answered slowly, and I 
 thought she sighed. 
 
 " Would you have a woman coquet with her 
 husband ? " I demanded. " Is marriage an in- 
 trigue or a sacrament 1 ? You don't know my 
 husband ! " I cried proudly, I suppose, for I 
 was touched a little. 
 
 " There, there ! Never mind," said Mrs. Gray, 
 as if I had been a pouting child. She began to 
 talk about Robert Hazelton's wedding-present. 
 It is a very odd present. Nobody quite un- 
 derstands it. It is just a gold candlestick made 
 in the shape of a compass, with the candle set at 
 one side as you see them, Dana says, on real 
 compasses. Within is the needle, a black point 
 upon a white enameled dial, pointing to the 
 north. I cannot help liking it ; it is so like Rob. 
 Dana asked me if it were meant to convey the
 
 102 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 fidelity of superfluous affection, and I could not 
 help laughing, it was so like Dana. Yet, when 
 I had laughed, I was a little sorry. Robert has 
 always thought me a much better woman than I 
 am, poor fellow ! Dana invited him to dinner 
 once, but he went away early to see some pa- 
 tients. I believe he has an excellent practice. 
 I wish he would marry Minnie Curtis. 
 
 I am writing somehow pettily this evening. I 
 don't know why. My soul seems shriveled a 
 little. Dana is dining out with some gentlemen : 
 I believe it has something to do with politics. 
 It is the first time. I would not have believed 
 that I could be so ridiculous about it. I have 
 devoted myself to Father the whole evening, 
 but the more devoted I was the worse it grew. 
 
 It seemed to me all the while as if the sky 
 were put out, and the earth had stopped, and 
 Dana were dead. Then it seemed as if there 
 never had been any Dana, and never would be 
 or could be. Father was so pleased with having 
 me to himself again that it was quite touching. 
 He even called Job, and told him to stand on 
 his head; and nothing could be more pathetic, 
 for Father is not one of the dog people. He is 
 polite to Job, for he recognizes that Job is a 
 gentleman, too ; but he has never loved him. On 
 Job's part it is a wholly unrequited attachment.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 103 
 
 But for me, I could have cried all the evening. 
 And Job would not stand on his head; he has 
 forgotten how. 
 
 He is up here with me now, just as he used 
 to be, quite by ourselves. Poor Job ! He kisses 
 me as if he had not seen me for six months 
 not obtrusively, but with a shy rapture of which 
 no being but a dog is capable. He does not 
 get used to sleeping in the bath-room, but Dana 
 prefers to have him there. He says if we cannot 
 have a home to ourselves, at least we can have 
 our own rooms as he likes them, which is per- 
 fectly reasonable in Dana. I find he is always 
 reasonable when he has his preferences con- 
 sulted. I hope Job will overcome that air of 
 settled melancholy which he wears whenever he 
 regards my husband. It cannot be denied that 
 he never " meets him with a smile." Sometimes 
 I think this vexes Dana. I used to think he 
 loved Job as much as I did. 
 
 Dana is very late. It is more than half-past 
 ten. I admit I am rather tired of petting Job. 
 This occupation does not seem as absorbing as 
 it used to be. I cannot read, I have tried, 
 but I listen so that I understand nothing I read. 
 I hear his footsteps on the concrete walk, past 
 the electric light in the street, whose cool, fair 
 light falls into our room and across it when the
 
 104 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 gas is out. (Dana likes that light as much as I 
 do ; it was a delight to me to find that he under- 
 stands the way I have always felt about it.) 
 
 As I sit here alone I hear him and I hear him, 
 but they are not his footsteps at all, only the 
 footsteps of my heart. I have seen a picture of 
 " Eurydice Listening," and her body was curved 
 a little like an ear. 
 
 It is as if I had become an ear heart and 
 body ; I seem to hear with my forehead and my 
 hair. A lifelong invalid told me once that she 
 heard with her cheeks. 
 
 It is eleven o'clock. Job barks in his dreams 
 of the grasshoppers at Sanchester; he has dis- 
 tinctly a grasshopper bark. I know politics stay 
 out late nights, but I did not know Dana meant 
 to go into politics. He told me to go to sleep. 
 Men say such singular things to women. 
 
 Job is asleep on my lounging-gown; I hate to 
 move him. I did not have a new one, for I 'm 
 fond of this ; but Maggie trimmed it up for me 
 very daintily with yards of fresh chantilly. Dana 
 likes me in this gown. He likes the lace, and 
 he likes the color. He says it is the shade of my 
 ruby. I think that must be Dana this time. . . . 
 
 It was a caller coming away from the Curtises'. 
 Perhaps by the time I get into the gown, and get 
 my hair brushed and braided, and warm my red
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 105 
 
 slippers, and fix his candle and all his little things 
 the way he likes, he will be here. 
 
 I have put fresh wood on the fire, for it is 
 quite a cold night. The blaze springs, as if it 
 laughed. Crossing before the pier-glass just now, 
 I was half startled at the figure I saw there 
 tall, all that lace and velvet, and all that color, 
 and curved a little, like Eurydice bent so, just 
 an ear. 
 
 I wonder if Orpheus was in politics? 
 
 The leaping fire flares upon my ruby ; deep, 
 deep, without a flaw, guardian and glad above 
 my wedding-ring. I think a ruby has never been 
 quite understood. I see now of all the jewels 
 God created one for women. A ruby is the 
 heart of a wife. 
 
 Oh, there ! After all ! He is striding up the 
 avenue. How he swings along ! As if he had 
 the world beneath his ringing feet. 
 
 I will not run down. I will make believe that 
 I am asleep, or not pleased that he was out so 
 late. And when he gets to the top of the stairs, 
 and as far as the door 
 
 " DEAR LOVE : Was I cross with you to-day 
 about your golf-stockings'? Believe, I did not 
 mean to be. I have had a hard headache, and 
 the sore throat, ever since we went in town to
 
 106 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 the Grays' in the storm, and I wore the lace 
 dress because you like it ; but it was pretty thin. 
 And I had darned the stockings myself, I 
 would not leave them to Maggie, and I was 
 so sure I had filled every single cavity ! What 
 a poor dentist I should make ! See, I am trying 
 to laugh. But, really, I have cried. It is the 
 first time you have ever spoken so to me, Darling. 
 No woman ever forgets the first time that the 
 man she loves speaks sharply to her : of that I 
 am sure. Everything else would go out of her 
 consciousness first. 
 
 " I was so afraid I should cry on the spot, and 
 that would have shamed me before you and to 
 myself, for I don't like people to see me cry. 
 And I think it was because I tried so hard not 
 to cry that I ' answered back ' a little. 
 
 "Dear, I am sorry. I was wrong. Forgive 
 me, my own ! Love never needs to answer back ; 
 it is too great to be so small. Silence would be 
 the nobler way. It is, I think, the stronger 
 weapon. But there need be no weapons, God 
 be thanked ! between yourself and 
 
 "MARNA, your Wife. 
 
 " P.S. I have been all over them the brown 
 ones, and the green, and the gray, and the speckly 
 kinds that are so hard to find the holes in; I
 
 "l WAS HALF STARTLED AT THE FIGURE I SAW THERE.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 107 
 
 have worked over the whole pile for a long while, 
 to be sure there are none of those tiny places the 
 barbed-wire fence bites between the pattern. I 
 hope you will not find me so careless and stupid 
 again. I am not much used to mending stock- 
 ings. Maggie has always done it for Father. 
 But I will see to yours, if you wish me to; of 
 course I will. One day you said so, had you 
 forgotten"? 'Marna, I wish you would mend 
 my clothes yourself. I have always thought 
 how nice it would be to have my wife do such 
 things for me.' So I tried. Dear, I am more 
 than willing to please you about these little 
 things. I care for nothing else but to please you. 
 My heart leans to you all the time. Waking 
 and sleeping I dream, and all my dreams are 
 yours. All my being has become a student in 
 the science of love ; and all my art is to learn 
 how skilfully to make you happy. Your frown 
 is my exile. Your smile is my Eden. Your 
 arms are my heaven. Once, ah, once I was 
 who could believe it now? -your Wilderness 
 Girl. Now, your happy captive, I kiss my chains. 
 Hold them lightly, Love, for I wear them so 
 heavily ! Yet lock them ; I shall but love you 
 more. Do you remember the day I told you to 
 throw the key away ? 
 
 "Oh, but you took me from my tribe, you
 
 io8 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Son of Battle ! You hurled me over your 
 shoulder and ran. Do you know how Father 
 misses me, though we are in the very one self- 
 same house"? You have torn me from him, 
 from my own life, from myself. From a depth 
 that you knew not, you drew me, and you slew 
 me ; for I tell you in a love like mine is a being 
 slain. To a depth that I know not, you drag 
 me. Ah, be merciful I love you ! for love's 
 sake ! 
 
 " If ever the time should come when I could 
 not pour out words like these upon you, if ever 
 the day should dawn when I should be sorry 
 that I had written so to you, or that I had suf- 
 fered you so to see the beating of my heart, for 
 indeed such words are but drops of my heart's 
 blood but I scorn myself for that unworthy 
 ' if When thought moves without a brain, 
 when blood leaps without a heart, when the 
 moon forgets to swim on summer nights above 
 the tree-house where my lips first drank your 
 kiss, then may I be sorry that I have written as 
 I write to-night to you. 
 
 " And I am sure you will never speak again 
 as you did to-day. It was the first time, as it 
 will be the last. I thought if I told you, if I 
 showed you how it slays a woman, if just this 
 once I should put by something in myself that
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 109 
 
 stands guard over my nature and says, ' Do not 
 let him know,' I thought that perhaps it would 
 be worth while. You might, I can understand, 
 you might hurt me, not knowing. Knowing 
 that you did, I '11 swear you never would, be- 
 cause you never could." 
 
 December the third. 
 
 DANA has gone into the law office of Mrs. 
 Gray's brother, Mr. Mellenway J. Harold 
 Mellenway. He is so busy that I see him only 
 evenings, and not always then. I am trying to 
 get used to it. Father says he is making a re- 
 markable beginning in his profession, and that if 
 he sustains his promise I shall have reason to be 
 proud of him. Father repeats that he is a bril- 
 liant young man. Dana does not have much 
 time to devote himself to Father now. He 
 seems to be whirled along. We all seem to be 
 whirled along like the figures in the Wheel of 
 Life drawn by some ancient Oriental people, I 
 forget who, all ignorant that they are helpless, 
 and all hurled on to a blind fate. 
 
 I have been married nearly seven weeks. If 
 he came in some night and said, " Marna, do 
 you know it is seven years ? " I should not feel 
 surprised. It is as if I had never existed before 
 I loved him, and it is as if I had lived cycles
 
 no CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 since I became his wife. I have traversed worlds 
 that astronomy never knew, and I am transmuted 
 into a being whose nature I do not recognize. 
 
 Here in my own room, where I have been 
 such a happy and solitary girl, I see everywhere 
 the careless, precious signs of him his slippers 
 on my hearth, his necktie tossed upon my bureau, 
 the newspapers that he always flings upon the 
 floor, and that I go and pick up; a messenger 
 from heaven could not have convinced me six 
 months ago that I would ever do it. 
 
 So, upon my heart, upon my brain, he flings 
 the traces of his presence, the impress of his 
 nature. It is to me as if my soul were a nickel 
 plate on which is etched a powerful and beauti- 
 ful picture, of which I know that I know not yet 
 the composition or the scope, and though I love 
 the picture, I fear it, because it is unfinished. 
 But he he dips a rosebud in a rainbow, and 
 paints him garlands and Cupids, smiling steadily, 
 so debonair he is. There are times (dear Ac- 
 cepted Manuscript, you will never tell) when the 
 lightness of his heart seems to me disarranged 
 from mine only for the moment, of course, I 
 mean. But yet I love him for the rainbow in 
 him. And perhaps, as Dana says, there is a zone 
 of twilight in my soul. A man does not like 
 to be loved too solemnly; whereas I think a
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 111 
 
 woman builds within her heart an altar to an 
 unknown god, and leaves her happiest hour to 
 steal away and worship. 
 
 December the tenth. 
 
 I HAVE discovered a new planet: Dana has a 
 real though untrained musical nature. He has 
 flitted to the piano off and on, of course, and I 
 have sometimes said, " What a touch ! " But he 
 has never truly played for me before. Last week 
 he came home with a violin. It seems he sent 
 it somewhere to be mended a year ago, and for- 
 got it (which is quite like him) ; and now that 
 he has remembered, I am half jealous of the 
 violin, he so devotes himself. He plays with a 
 kind of feeling that I do not know how to define, 
 unless to say that it is passionate, imperious, and 
 fitful. If I said the utter truth to my very soul, 
 perhaps I could not call it tender music. But 
 why say ? I have already found that the first 
 lesson a wife must learn is not to admit the utter 
 truth about her husband to her own soul. If she 
 mistranslates, she is unhappy ; if she overvalues 
 him, she may be more so. Marriage needs 
 something of the opalescent haze such as be- 
 trothal breathes, and daily life goes a beggar for 
 the element of romance. This vanished some- 
 thing Dana's playing seems to be about to recall 
 to us. Just now he has gone music-mad. From
 
 112 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 violin to piano, and back to violin, he sways like 
 a mast in a storm. As I write he is singing; 
 there are beautiful tones in his voice, and tears 
 are on my cheeks as I listen. He comes to an 
 unaccountable stop, and runs, dashing up the 
 stairs, to see me. 
 
 I am staying in my room with a headache and 
 a kind of foolish languor. He is so kind to me 
 that I could weep for happiness. What wife was 
 ever so cherished as I ? Listen ! He sings that 
 exquisite thing which his voice seems to have 
 created, and for me. In point of fact I believe it 
 is Handel's. 
 
 Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade; 
 Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade. 
 
 And now he dashes into the superb "Bedouin 
 Love-Song " that he often chooses : 
 
 From the Desert I come to thee, 
 On my Arab shod with fire ; 
 
 And the winds are left behind 
 In the speed of my desire. 
 
 I love thee, I love but thee! 
 With a love that shall not die! 
 
 His voice peals through the house like a trium- 
 phal procession. Even Father has opened the 
 library door to listen. Job is lying perfectly
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 113 
 
 still in the hall, with quivering ears, music- 
 smitten, as delicately organized dogs sometimes 
 are. The eternal bridegroom rings in my hus- 
 band's singing joyous, imperial, master of the 
 present and dauntless of the future. Oh, I love 
 thee, master of my heart and of my life ! 
 
 I cannot stand this any longer. What 's a 
 headache *? I think if I get into the warm red 
 gown, and steal down very softly, and up behind 
 him before he knows it, and just put my arms 
 about his neck, with no sound at all, and lay my 
 cheek to his (though the tears are on it still) 
 Oh, hark ! How sure and glad he is ! 
 
 I love thee, I love but thee! 
 
 Till the sun grows cold, 
 And the stars are old, 
 And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! 
 
 December the twelfth. 
 
 DANA was displeased with me about something 
 (a little thing, too small to write) to-day, and 
 went to his day's work without kissing me. It 
 is the first time. I shut mvself in here and cried 
 
 j 
 
 half the morning. Job's head is quite a mop, 
 for he tried to comfort me. 
 
 Awhile ago I went down and telephoned to
 
 ii 4 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 the office, for I could not, could not, bear it. 
 This is the veracious record of our interview : 
 
 HE : Oh ! That you, Marna ? Glad to -hear 
 from you. What a lovely telephone voice you 
 have ! Well, what is it? 
 
 I : I have felt so unhappy, Dear, all the morn- 
 ing! I thought perhaps 
 
 HE: Unhappy"? What in thunder for? 
 
 I : Why, of course, Dana, you know 
 
 HE : I have no more idea what you are talk- 
 ing about than you have of the English common 
 law. Do be quick, Marna ! I 'm busy. 
 
 I : Oh, have you forgotten that you went off 
 without without 
 
 HE : I went off without my handkerchief, if 
 that 's what you mean. 
 
 I : Dana! 
 
 HE : Marna! Go find it, Dear, and dry the 
 tears out of your voice. I tell you I 'm busy. 
 Good-by. Oh, by the way. Don't wait dinner 
 for me if I 'm not home on time. I am rushed 
 to death to-day. Good-by. 
 
 I : But, Dana dear 
 
 HE : But, Marna dear ! Don't bother me. 
 Good-by. 
 
 I am thinking of an old French saying : Elk 
 en meurt il en rit. Once, to think of it to think 
 of it, I mean, in a way that could possibly have
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 115 
 
 any relation to myself would have brought 
 the blood stinging to my cheeks. Now it brings 
 only the tears starting to my eyes. 
 
 December the seventeenth. 
 
 DANA is obsessed with an idea. I find he has a 
 good many ideas. Father was a little vexed 
 with him to-day, and called them fictions. In 
 point of fact, Dana wants to build a house, and 
 Father thinks it quite unnecessary and expensive. 
 He wants Dana to wait until his legal income is 
 more assured, offering us till such time our pres- 
 ent home in his own house. It is large enough, 
 I admit ; we have our own suite, and every com- 
 fort, and no more care than if we were figures on 
 a fresco. 
 
 Father's old Ellen looks after everything; she 
 has been in the house since I was a baby, and 
 rules the family like a Chinese ancestor. I do 
 not think of Ellen any more than I do of the 
 atmosphere. I don't think I have ever so much 
 as mentioned her in the Accepted Manuscript; 
 she is a matter of course. I suppose my life has 
 been more free from care than that of many girls, 
 especially motherless girls, and that I shall have 
 a good deal to learn if I keep house. But if 
 Dana wishes it I should not mind the trouble ; I 
 should like to please Dana. I asked Ellen
 
 u6 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 whether she thought I could do it so as to please 
 him. She looked at me and did not say any- 
 thing, only she patted me on the head with her 
 wrinkled hand ; I could n't make out at all what 
 Ellen meant. Then I asked Maggie, quite con- 
 fidentially, whether she would like to work for 
 me if I kept house ; for I suppose we could not 
 afford more than one servant, or two at the most. 
 But Maggie said : 
 
 " Is it the lady's-maid ye 'd be wanting, Miss 
 Marna ? It 's not a housemaid I am accustomed 
 to call myself." 
 
 I never felt uncomfortable before the servants 
 before. Sometimes I think they don't like my 
 husband as much as they do me. I never should 
 have believed that it could make any difference 
 to anybody whether they did or not. 
 
 I have left the two gentlemen talking it out 
 in the library. Job and I hear their voices as 
 we curl up here upon my lounge to rest. I 
 don't know why I am so tired. Everything 
 seems to agitate or excite me, and then I am 
 tired because I have been agitated. I feel things 
 too much ; I am surcharged, like a Leyden jar, 
 and every now and then there is a crash, a sort 
 of explosion of the nerve-force, and I find I am 
 a little weak and spent. I live all the time in 
 an electric world, where everything is tense, and
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 117 
 
 am liable to accidents of feeling for which I can 
 never be prepared. Dana is always in a hurry, 
 and a more nervous man than I thought him. 
 I think he wants calm and comfort all the time. 
 Sometimes I wonder if he did n't need a serener 
 girl than I am some one quite poised and 
 comfortable a girl who does n't mind things. 
 It would break my heart if I thought any woman 
 in the world could have made Dana happier 
 than I can. 
 
 Father's voice is quite low and controlled, 
 perfectly modulated, always; he never loses 
 himself. Poor Dana must be disturbed about 
 something. All those tones in his voice that I 
 love least are uppermost to-night. I feel as if I 
 wanted to go down and put my arms about him, 
 and put my lips to his, and kiss part of his voice 
 out of his nature. 
 
 December the eighteenth. 
 
 IT is very suddenly decided for that is Dana's 
 way : to do things at once. We are to build 
 a cottage of our own here on Father's place. 
 Father will deed the land to me, but Dana 
 builds the house. We shall have to mortgage 
 it, he says. This seems to me somehow a lit- 
 tle disgraceful. Dana threw back his curling 
 head and laughed when I said so. I told him 
 he laughed like the young god Pan, so I laughed,
 
 u8 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 too. Dana's spirits are contagious; that is, all 
 but sometimes. Once in a while I feel as if he 
 tried to laugh away things which are not laugh- 
 able, and then I am not merry. Father is rather 
 quiet; he does not talk much about the cottage. 
 He only said that it was perfectly natural for a 
 man to want his own home ; he finds no fault at 
 all with Dana. 
 
 " It will be a good deal of a care for you just 
 now," he said, but that was all. 
 
 Dana's voice his best voice soars all over 
 the house. He is singing : 
 
 Then stay at home, my heart, and rest; 
 
 The bird is safest in its nest; 
 O'er all that flutter their wings and fly 
 A hawk is hovering in the sky; 
 
 To stay at home is best. 
 
 Now he has slipped into a discord, and stopped 
 the music with a crash. Now he will come 
 running up-stairs, two at a time. I know what 
 that means : he misses me. He will come bound- 
 ing in. There will be a kiss, a laugh, his arms, 
 his love, and paradise. We shall have a long, 
 happy evening by ourselves. The fire is fair; 
 the sweeping crimson curtains are drawn ; there 
 are jacqueminots on my dressing-table; the ex- 
 pectant room is solemn. The winter night is
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 119 
 
 like the angel Joy, strong and beautiful. It is 
 as I said those first few weeks beside the autumn 
 sea: Eden waits in every weather. Oh, I love 
 him ! I love him so that it is as if I could 
 perish of loving and not know that I had been 
 slain. 
 
 December the twenty-fourth. 
 
 WE are all so happy to-night that it seems a 
 kind of theft from joy to take the time to say so. 
 The angel of life is bearing us along on quiet 
 wings. Father is quite well, better than usual, 
 and Dana has done some brilliant thing at court 
 which pleases the governor. The ground is to 
 be broken to-morrow for our new house ; it is to 
 stand just behind Ararat, in the garden, near the 
 wall and the electric light. Dana is very merry 
 and kind ; no one can be so kind as Dana. For 
 me, I am better, and I am happy, too. The 
 doctor (old Dr. Curtis) has quite talked me out 
 of the blues I was in awhile ago. And to-mor- 
 row I thought I had pages to say about to- 
 morrow; but my pen is deaf and dumb. I find 
 I cannot speak, even to my own heart only to 
 his. I will leave a note upon his pillow ; I hope 
 he will like it. At first it was a joy to write 
 them because it was clearly such a joy to him to 
 read them. My brain seemed to be stimulated, 
 as well as my heart, by happiness; thought it-
 
 120 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 self was sharpened, and all my feeling and ex- 
 pression refined. There is no inspiration like 
 that which comes of being beloved. I think, if 
 I had been born a writer or a poet, I could have 
 written a great book or song in my bridal weeks. 
 Dana has been so busy lately that I have not 
 written him many love-notes. It is quite a while 
 since I left one upon his pillow. I put this blank 
 white paper to my lips, and I breathe words upon 
 it, and love them into meaning. 
 
 " DARLING : I should like to say that to you 
 which fails me in the saying, for it is our first 
 Christmas eve together, and to-morrow will mean 
 something for us which no other Christmas in 
 our lives can mean. Just this little time while 
 you are reading to Father (I am glad you thought 
 to offer him that pleasure) I am taking the leisure 
 of my heart to write you a wife-note. Do you 
 remember how you used to kiss them ? I shall 
 put this you know where. 
 
 " The night is strong and still. There is not 
 much wind, and a mighty frost. The snow is 
 like the shield of the great Venus (supposing her 
 to have been a Victory; you know I always fan- 
 cied that idea; I like to think that she lost her 
 arms trying to defend herself she, Victory, 
 vanquished). See ! the pagan is not drowned
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 121 
 
 out of me yet, though you have n't called it 
 'sumptuous' for quite a time, and to-night how 
 can imagination cherish any but the Christian 
 images ? 
 
 " I admit that the others ring rather hollow. 
 Even the great Venus, solemn and strong, ideal 
 of Unattained Love, perhaps, who knows? of 
 the Unattainable, woman from the first heart- 
 beat, but goddess to the end, even she, the glory 
 of paganism she bows with the shepherds be- 
 fore the Child of Bethlehem. Can't you see just 
 how she would look, the awful Venus, on her 
 knees'? I can. 
 
 " I am writing by the firelight and the electric 
 street-light, crumpled upon a cricket between the 
 two, the paper on my lap and, Dear, the tears 
 upon my cheeks. I am thinking of the strange 
 light that blossomed on the sky that night in 
 Palestine. I have always thought it was deep 
 pink, like a bursting rose. I am thinking of 
 the village khan and the grotto stable; it flits 
 before me like the plates in a sacred magic- 
 lantern at some religious scene, now this slide, 
 now that, returning on themselves and repeating 
 the effect, and always centering upon one group. 
 
 "Dear, I have done all my Christmasing for 
 Father, for the servants, for Job, and for every- 
 body, and I have not much for you ; only one
 
 122 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 thing. I shall fold it in this note, it is so small. 
 For when I tried to think what I could give you, it 
 seemed to me that there was nothing left. I have 
 given you all I am. How can I, who am so spend- 
 thrift of myself for your dear sake how can I 
 offer you any small thing on this, on this first 
 Christmas of our life together? I chose the little 
 gold Madonna for your watch-guard because I 
 could not bring myself to anything else. It was 
 made for me in Paris (if you care to know), but 
 it is to me as if Love had ordered it for me out 
 of heaven. Wear it, Dear, because you love me, 
 because you love us. 
 
 " I find I cannot write to-night; I cannot think; 
 I dare not dream. I find it out of my power to 
 admit your soul altogether to my own. For I 
 begin to feel now, as I used to do before we were 
 married, that a woman must not exact too much 
 of a man ; she must not expect him to under- 
 stand ; she must remind herself that he is a man, 
 and cannot. For a time we have been one, you 
 and I, husband and wife, and the eternal and al- 
 mighty difference has been smitten out between 
 us by strong love, which makes of twain one 
 being. 
 
 " Now, at the very time when we begin to be 
 dearest to each other, closest, most sacred, now 
 we begin again, for I do perceive it, while most
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 123 
 
 united, to deviate, nature from nature, sex from 
 sex. Already, thou dear lord of me and of mine, 
 I feel with blinding tears that I stand apart from 
 thee, when most cherished by thee. Already I 
 see that I begin to tread a separate and a solemn 
 road. 
 
 " Dana ! Dana ! My heart reaches out to you 
 with an unutterable cry. Try to interpret its 
 inarticulate meaning. 
 
 " Forgive this too solemn letter, my dear Love, 
 and love me better for it if you can. If your 
 love does not advance with my need of it, I shall 
 perish of that pause. 
 
 "For I can see nothing in all the world of 
 visions this Christmas eve but the Mother with 
 the Child upon her breast. 
 
 " Oh, be gentle to 
 
 " YOUR WIFE." 
 
 May the fifteenth. 
 
 WHEN I see how long it is since I have opened 
 this book, I do not know whether to laugh or 
 cry. As a rule I find the former works better. 
 Masculine tenderness is said to respond to tears. 
 I do not find it so. Rather, I should say that a 
 man's devotion fades under salt water, like a 
 bathing-suit, proving unserviceable in the very 
 element for which it is supposed to be adapted.
 
 124 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I never used to be a crying girl ; I am quite 
 ashamed of the number of times a week I lock 
 myself into my own rooms to have it out with 
 myself. I suppose it is a physical condition. 
 Nobody sees but Job. He jumps into my lap, 
 more gently than he used to, and kisses my wet 
 face. Heaven knows how he understands that 
 drops on a cheek mean grief in the heart. Some- 
 times I think that perception of the finer states of 
 one we love is in relation to dumbness. Words, 
 protestations, impulses of the lip, come to mean 
 less as love means more. One of the sages was 
 he who said that conduct is three fourths of life. 
 
 Our cottage is done and we move in to-mor- 
 row. It is the night before I leave my father's 
 home for our own. There has been too much to 
 do, and I am not quite equal now to the tax upon 
 my strength. I was always such a well, strong 
 girl poised, I think, in soul and body. Physi- 
 cal malaise is a foreigner to me, and there is no 
 common vocabulary between it and myself. No 
 girl thinks of this. When I expected to be 
 most comforted I find myself most solitary. I 
 suppose it is a common, or at least a frequent, 
 experience. Men are so busy and so insolently 
 strong. There is something cruel in their physi- 
 cal freedom. 
 
 No woman deity could ever have constructed
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 125 
 
 this world. I wonder is there not somewhere, 
 softly whirring through space, a planet that the 
 Ewigweibliche has created ? There must be a 
 feminine element in Godhead, or woman would 
 not exist. Suppose this were given its untram- 
 meled and separate expression ? I like to think 
 what a world that would be, or may be yet, for 
 aught we know. 
 
 I am tired oh, I am tired ! I do not feel 
 much enthusiasm about this new house. The 
 sheer strain of building and furnishing has shaken 
 the romance all out of it. A sensible, middle- 
 aged woman once told me that she and her hus- 
 band came to the brink of a divorce over the 
 first house they built (they are rather an unusu- 
 ally happy couple), and that the only way she 
 prevented the catastrophe was by saying, " Have 
 it all your own way; I will not express another 
 wish about this house." Yet they lived in it 
 comfortably for fifteen years. She had seven 
 children, most of them born in it. 
 
 Dana is happy about the house, quite happy; 
 and I suppose this ought to make me so. It 
 would have, once. But I see so little of my 
 husband now that the proportions of feeling are 
 changing. I am afraid they are changing in 
 me as well as in him. I don't mean no, no ! 
 I could not mean that I care less. But I enjoy
 
 126 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 less and I suffer more. He is away from home 
 all day and many evenings; sometimes most 
 evenings of the week. And he travels more 
 or less on his professional business or on political 
 errands. I try to think that this is all right, and 
 that it is always necessary. In my soul I know 
 it is not. I am already very lonely. I am per- 
 plexed and troubled. I used always to feel be- 
 loved. Now I feel hurt much of the time. 
 Such a state as this chills a woman to the heart. 
 My husband sometimes calls me cold ; he will 
 say this when I am quivering with wounded 
 love, when I am nothing but one nerve of pas- 
 sionate tenderness bruised. I do not reply; I 
 let him say so. I have tried to make him see 
 how it really is. I have tried so often that I 
 have got through. I am beginning to think that 
 he cannot understand. 
 
 Perhaps I shall be happier in our new house. 
 And by and by in October, when I am well 
 again perhaps he will be different ; he will 
 stay at home more ; we shall be together as 
 we used to be ; and he will be so happy, we 
 shall be so united, that I shall be glad again. I 
 must hold this truth fast; for, from very phys- 
 ical weakness, and a little, I think, from lone- 
 liness, it eludes me. The kingdom of love 
 is within us, and " only our own souls can sever 
 us."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 127 
 
 I AM too rebel to the primal laws. No Wilder- 
 ness Girl should ever be married, I think. Oh, 
 the silence and the freedom and the sacred soli- 
 tudes of maidenhood! I think of them with a pas- 
 sionate hunger and thirst. I remember how Gwen- 
 dolen, after one of her scenes with Grandcourt, 
 complained to herself that she could not even 
 make a passionate exclamation, or throw up her 
 arms as she would have done in her maiden days. 
 
 But she did not love her husband. I never 
 thought to see the time when I should thank 
 God that I do love mine. But now I perceive 
 that if I did not the foundations of the great 
 deep would be broken up. And I should 
 What should I do ? What could I do ? 
 
 Job just pulled something from the basket 
 on my sewing-table and brought it to me, wag- 
 ging rather piteously. It is the little blue blan- 
 ket that I am trying to embroider for my son. 
 It grows slowly ; I never liked to sew. 
 
 Let me learn to be divinely patient, as women 
 can, as women must. I must remember that 
 happiness has not fled from my life at all. The 
 angel Joy will return with a sweet and solemn 
 face. " And a little child shall lead them." 
 
 Eleven o'clock. 
 
 I HAVE spent . most of the evening with Father, 
 for he, too, feels, I can see, the emotion of this
 
 128 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 last night before I leave his house. I had read 
 him to sleep, I thought, before I slid up-stairs. 
 Just now the front door opened (with some un- 
 necessary noise), and I ran to the head of the 
 stairs to tell Dana that Father was asleep. But 
 he had gone on into the library before I could 
 attract his attention. 
 
 He stays so long that I wonder why. I be- 
 lieve I will go down. . . . 
 
 I went. My red slippers are quite mute, and 
 my old ruby gown never whispers. I did not 
 think that they would not hear me, and I came 
 upon them quite suddenly and unnoticed. 
 
 The two men were standing in the dim library, 
 for Father had got into his dressing-gown and 
 had come out to meet my husband ; I am afraid 
 he had been listening for his son-in-law to come 
 in. He held Dana's hand in his own. Dana 
 looked very handsome and debonair in his even- 
 ing dress, with his nonchalant eyes, and smiling 
 steadily. Father did not smile; his face worked. 
 As I stood silent and wondering, I saw the 
 sacred tears stream down my father's face. 
 
 " Oh, be kind to her ! " he said. " Be kind 
 to her ! " 
 
 May the sixteenth. 
 
 Too tired to sit up, I write this lying flat on my 
 new bed in my new room, in our new house. It
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 129 
 
 seemed a pity not to sanctify the date by one 
 warm word ; for we moved over in a cold storm 
 one of my own northeasters. All the garden 
 trees are tossing like masts in a gale, every green 
 sail flapping. The old apple-tree, on a level 
 with our little library, turns a strange, familiar 
 face to me in the rain, like the face of a friend 
 whom you had never seen cry before; there 
 seems to be no way to wipe off the tears, and 
 they stream on steadily. This is the more no- 
 ticeable because we really are not sad at all. 
 
 The cottage is quite comfortable, and I should 
 not have thought it would seem so attractive by 
 gas-light ; it is very bright, and all the colors are 
 warm. There is rose in my own room. Why 
 is it that color means something less to me than 
 it used to do *? Once I should have responded 
 to the tinting of this room (it is really very good) 
 in every nerve. Now, somehow, it does not seem 
 to matter very much. I suppose that is physical, 
 too. Most things are, to women. Who said, 
 " There is a spiritual body " ? Paul, I suppose. 
 Nevertheless, there is philosophy as sound as it 
 is subtle in those five words. 
 
 The new maids are buzzing about the new 
 kitchen. It seems like a doll's house. Maggie 
 has gone to Mrs. Gray. Old Ellen takes care 
 of Father, and he has connected the two houses
 
 130 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 by telephone. Job is plainly homesick, and 
 will not go to bed. Every time the apple-tree 
 hits the tree-house he barks in a melancholy 
 manner, and Dana cuffs him for it, for Dana can- 
 not bear anything melancholy. 
 
 There is a banshee in my house, I find. My 
 speaking-tube to the cook's room catches the 
 wind and wails beyond belief. Job growls at 
 the banshee. 
 
 Dana is so happy that I wonder I do not feel 
 happier. There is a new piano, and he sits 
 singing. Somehow he seems to me like a new 
 husband. But I am quite aware that I do not 
 seem to him like a new wife. I wonder if I 
 ever shall again ? He plays with his nonchalant 
 touch : 
 
 Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest ; 
 Home-keeping hearts are happiest. 
 
 Yes, here it comes; I hoped he would not forget 
 it. I really do not know why I did not want to 
 ask him for this song. Something of the bond- 
 age of maidenhood seems to remain in a wife, a 
 kind of impossibility, I do not know how to 
 express it, a power not herself which makes 
 for silence, the terrible law which takes from a 
 woman's love even that which it hath, and forbids 
 her to woo even her own husband. I do not
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 131 
 
 know whether this is a right law or a wrong one, 
 a tradition or an instinct. I do not think women 
 are alike in this. Perhaps it is relative, too so 
 much freedom in her nature to so much love in 
 his. The banshee is quite overborne as he sings 
 joyously : 
 
 From the Desert I come to thee, 
 On my Arab shod with fire. 
 
 May the twentieth. 
 
 THE new maid (her name is Luella) hit the new 
 sofa bang ! against the new library wall to-day, 
 and bit two bites out of the new old-gold calci- 
 mine. Dana was very angry. I did not know 
 for quite a while after we were married that he 
 was such a quick-tempered man. I feel very 
 sorry for him ; it must be so uncomfortable to 
 be quick-tempered. I am differently constituted 
 myself: I grieve. 
 
 I think he thinks it is my fault when he is 
 angry. I wonder if it is? Of course I am not 
 always right; and then, a woman is in such physi- 
 cal discomfort most of the time. To-day I an- 
 swered Dana very positively. He scolded Luella 
 so that she gave notice on the spot. I never 
 heard a girl give notice before, and it was a dis- 
 agreeable experience. \Ve never had any trou- 
 ble with our maids in Father's house. I have
 
 132 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 always grown up with the feeling that families 
 that changed servants were not quite respectable. 
 I told Dana that he ought to leave the manage- 
 ment of the servants to me. He said, "D n!" 
 Then he put on his hat and went out. There is 
 no music to-night. Luella and the cook are 
 conspiring in the kitchen, and Job and I are 
 tete-a-tete, exchanging confidences. 
 
 May the twenty-first. 
 
 DANA was charming this evening. I think he is 
 sorry. I had found some good old prints of 
 Landseer's dogs, and cut them out and pasted 
 them up over the breaks in the calcimine, above 
 the sofa, something like the frieze of a dado; 
 really, they have quite an effect of their own. 
 
 " You always were clever," he said, and kissed 
 me twice. Job was positively jealous of the 
 Landseer dogs. We held him up, and I stroked 
 the dogs, and Job growled and snarled and flew 
 at them. Dana was immensely amused. He 
 named one of the dogs David, and the other 
 Dora. We have had a happy evening, and 
 Luella has consented to stay. 
 
 The night is all a palette of pale greens and 
 fair blues and grays after the storm, and there is 
 no banshee. The apple-tree is in blossom, and 
 the tree-house is drifted with snow of pink and
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 133 
 
 pearl. Dana asked me to come out into the 
 tree-house with him. " Subpoena Job for wit- 
 ness," he said. " He can testify what you 
 have the air of forgetting, my lady that I took 
 the first there. Nothing can undo that." 
 
 " I wonder if anything can ever undo any- 
 thing 1 ?" I said, laughing too. So I climbed up 
 into the tree-house to please him; but I was so 
 tired and physically wretched that I am afraid I 
 disappointed him, and I could not stay very long. 
 I think Dana really tried to reproduce something 
 of the old glamour, and when he found that it 
 was missing, he thought it was I who failed to 
 supply the materials of romance. No wonder. 
 
 I read a story last week in which the author 
 took upon himself to remark that the experience 
 of prospective parentage was equally hard to 
 husband and to wife, because, "while she bore 
 her sufferings, he bore her complaints " ! It is 
 unnecessary to observe that this piece of fiction 
 was written by a man. This paragraph is quite 
 superfluous, I believe women are superfluous 
 by nature, for Dana has been very kind to me 
 to-day. I have just telephoned to Father that I 
 am quite happy. 
 
 " June the tenth. 
 
 " DANA MY DEAR : I do not think it will be 
 necessary for you to hurry home if the trip is
 
 134 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 doing you good. And if there is any professional 
 reason, as you say, for prolonging it a few days 
 more, never mind me. I cannot say, to be 
 honest, that I am very well. The hot weather 
 has leaped upon us like a tiger from a jungle; I 
 never was torn by it before. But I am not suf- 
 fering for anything in particular, except you. I 
 suppose a husband's presence is one of the luxu- 
 ries that a wife must learn to go without. That 
 seems to be the modern idea. And I am too 
 busy to mope or sentimentalize about you. 
 
 " Things are going after a fashion in the house. 
 The room being smaller than I am used to, I 
 think I feel the hot nights more. And Luella 
 has given notice again, and again consented to 
 remain. 
 
 " Father is a little troubled about the effect of 
 this weather on me, and has been doing some- 
 thing about the Dowe Cottage for August and 
 September. What do you think? He asked 
 me to ask you to telegraph if you approve. The 
 idea is that we should go there (to visit him), 
 and stay till all is over. Dr. Curtis urges it. I 
 must say I should like to go. On these breath- 
 less nights, in my stuffy little rose room, I seem 
 to see waves breaking on the window-sill; but 
 they never get over. I can almost smell the 
 salt, but I never feel the spray. And, then, we
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 135 
 
 were so happy there! I can't help feeling as if 
 the old joy were shut up in that cottage, like a 
 tenant who was locked in, and would fly to meet 
 us, and take us in his arms, and bless us both 
 for now and for ever. 
 
 " I am your loving and your lonely 
 
 " WIFE." 
 
 June the tenth. 
 
 I HAVE just written to Dana about the Dowe 
 Cottage. I am afraid it was not exactly a love- 
 letter; somehow, I could not. If I had let him 
 know how much I miss him, I do not think he 
 would quite like it altogether. Why is almighty 
 Nature forever laying a coal of fire upon a 
 woman's lips? 
 
 So I wrote quite stiffly and serenely; and 
 when I had finished the letter I cried, for no- 
 body but Job could see. 
 
 I just got up and went into his room, and 
 touched all his little things the brushes on his 
 dressing-case, his slippers lying where he tossed 
 them (for he never likes to have me move them 
 to put them away), his ash-receiver, with a half- 
 burnt cigar just as he left it. Then I went into the 
 closet where his clothes are hanging, and put my 
 cheek to them all, one after the other. His blue 
 velveteen smoking-jacket hung inside the door;
 
 136 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 he wore that one day when he seemed to love me 
 more than usual, and I could not help it I 
 kissed the velveteen coat. I kissed it several times. 
 
 June the fifteenth. 
 
 I WENT out about the grounds to-day to oversee 
 some workmen who were grading, but was quite 
 overcome by the burning weather, and I think I 
 had something like a faint, or touch of the sun. 
 When they helped me indoors the house seemed 
 to rock and reverberate with Dana's voice, and it 
 was as if he were singing : 
 
 Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade. 
 
 I could scarcely believe that he was not there. 
 
 "j4ugust the tenth. West Manchester. 
 " MY DEAR HEART : You have been very de- 
 voted and kind to me ever since we came here, 
 and I want to bless you for it. I know that you 
 have been working too hard and need a change, 
 and I am sure it is quite safe for you to be away 
 for a little while. If you want to try the moun- 
 tains after Bar Harbor, I would not prevent it on 
 any account. As long as you keep within reach 
 of the telegraph it will be all right. I thank you 
 for giving up the Adirondack trip, for I do think 
 that was too far away just now. Continue to
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 137 
 
 write and telegraph as faithfully and lovingly 
 as you have done. I depend on that more than 
 you know. A wife is one of the foolish folk ; 
 you cannot exact man's poise or wisdom of a 
 woman's heart and body. I never love you so 
 much as when you remember to love me and to 
 comfort me in little ways. 
 
 " How handsome you looked the morning you 
 left, my beautiful ! You went swinging down 
 the avenue. I wanted to go to the station with 
 you, and because I could not I cried a little; but 
 not till you had quite gone. I watched you till 
 you were out of sight. The light was splendid 
 on your hair and forehead as you lifted your hat 
 and kissed your hand. I thought: 'If I should 
 never see him again, what a vision to keep with 
 me in this world, or to take with me to another!' 
 Women will have such thoughts, my darling; 
 we watt too much to take life lightly. Be 
 patient with 
 
 " MARNA, your Wife." 
 
 TELEGRAM 
 
 " West Manchester, August 17. 
 
 "To Dana Herwin, 
 
 "Maplewood House, 
 
 "Bethlehem, New Hampshire. 
 
 " Come at once. 
 
 "FRANCIS TRENT."
 
 138 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 TELEGRAM 
 
 '-'West Manchester, August 18. 
 "To Dana Her win, 
 
 "Care of Conductor, White Mountain Express, 
 en route for Boston. Try Portsmouth. 
 
 " Don't suffer. I am not in any danger now. 
 But the blanket ought to have been pink. 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 "August the eighteenth. 
 
 " DEAR FATHER OF MY DAUGHTER : They let 
 me write, in pencil, for I insisted. Father will 
 give it to you at the station. I convinced the 
 doctor it would be better for me than to talk 
 at first. I don't want to speak. I only want to 
 be touched and kissed and for you not to go 
 .away again. All I want, all I want in this world, 
 is you. I shall get well. There will nothing 
 go wrong now you are here. Oh, I cannot say 
 that it was not hard without you. At first I 
 thought of everything motherless young wives, 
 and women with drunken husbands, and the 
 poor, unwedded girls : all womanhood seemed 
 to pass by me in a pathetic procession, drifting 
 through the room. And I thought, * I am one of 
 them.' 
 
 " But after that I thought of nothing no-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 139 
 
 thing in earth or heaven but you not of the 
 baby at all, only you, you. 
 
 " Stay by me when you come, Darling! Don't 
 let them persuade you that it will harm me. It 
 will save me, and it is the only thing that will. 
 They thought that I should die, but I could not 
 die when you were so far away. That would 
 have been impossible. 
 
 " Dana, Dana, I live, and I love you. For I 
 am 
 
 "THE MOTHER OF YOUR CHILD." 
 
 August the thirtieth. 
 
 THIS is the first time I have been allowed to 
 write (to amuse myself), and I am limited to 
 eight lines. " Being happy," I remember Haw- 
 thorne said, " he had no questions to put." Being 
 happy because my husband gives rne every mo- 
 ment that he can beg or steal from time, being 
 happy because he is so happy, because he blinds 
 me with tenderness, I have no letters to write. 
 Instead, I record the fact that my daughter is 
 two weeks old to-day, and that Job is so jealous 
 of her that we cannot keep them in the same 
 room. I think he is planning definite hostilities. 
 Job finds her more objectionable than David 
 and Dora.
 
 IV 1 
 
 November the tenth. 
 
 I HEARD of a man the other day whose wife 
 went into his room to kiss him good night, 
 and he said : " Mary, why do you do this ? I 
 do not love you. There is no other woman in 
 the case. I have not wronged you. But I no 
 longer love you. If I were you, I should not 
 kiss my husband under these circumstances." 
 
 This is a true story. Minnie Curtis told me 
 the names of the people. I repeated it to Dana 
 to-day, and he said, yes, she had told him that 
 yarn. He finds it quite a relief, he says, when 
 
 1 Upon careful examination of the manuscript of which these confessions are 
 composed, the system of dating is found to be, after the manner of women, 
 quite a matter of accident. Days of the month or week are usually observed 
 with something like accuracy, but there is no reliable calendar of the years. 
 
 The next available record occurs apparently a year and some months from 
 the date of the last entry given in these columns, and which was coincident 
 with the birth of the young wife's child. 
 
 A close study of the copy reveals the fact that certain pages of the Ac- 
 cepted Manuscript are missing, having been torn rather than cut away, and 
 presumably destroyed. 
 
 What letters, if any, have shared the same fate, it is impossible to 
 say. M. A. 
 
 140
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 141 
 
 he is tired and the baby is crying, to run in to 
 the Curtises'. He met Robert Hazelton there, 
 the last time, consulting with Dr. Curtis. The old 
 doctor is not well, and makes over a good deal 
 of his practice to Robert. I asked Dana if he 
 thought Robert saw much of Minnie ; but Dana 
 says that Robert has no time to talk to girls 
 he says he does n't think he is that kind of doc- 
 tor. It leaped to my lips to ask Dana why he 
 was that kind of lawyer. But I did not do it. 
 If I had, all the answer I should have got would 
 have been : " You don't classify quite correctly. 
 I 'm going into politics," or some equally clever 
 parry. Nothing would have been gained, and 
 something lost something of that indefinable 
 advantage which a wife (more than a husband, I 
 think) retains with self-possession. A woman 
 can never afford to be cross. Why is it that a 
 man can ? 
 
 The first lesson of a wife is to learn when not 
 to speak ; I doubt if she ever learns why not. I 
 am a dull pupil in the school of marriage. No 
 Wilderness Girl takes to the higher mathematics 
 with any natural grace. If it were not for my 
 daughter well, if it were not for my daughter *? 
 It is for my daughter the insurmountable fact, 
 the unanswerable question, the key that locks 
 me to my lot. If I fled back to my forest, she
 
 142 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 would cry for me. And if I strapped her on my 
 back and ran I don't think the governor's 
 granddaughter would make a successful papoose. 
 She is much more like her grandfather than like 
 me, thank Heaven. She has his equable mouth, 
 though it curls at the corners more than his. I 
 think she will grow up into a comfortable young 
 lady, and marry a congressman, and be happy 
 ever after. There is nothing of her father about 
 her yet, except his eyes; hers already have the 
 insouciance, but not the insolence, the superflu- 
 ous merriment refined by her sex. I have studied 
 her anxiously. She bears my mother's name. 
 
 " Marion," I said to-day, " I am glad you are 
 not a boy baby." 
 
 She gave me an elfish glance, and the corners 
 of her mouth curled. I never saw a sarcastic 
 baby before. 
 
 November the twentieth. 
 
 I HAVE the outlines of a Greek tragedy before 
 me. A girl I used to go to school with married 
 a brilliant young fellow of her own social class, 
 whom she adored with that kind of too tolerant 
 tenderness for which, as a sex, we seem to 
 be distinguished. Some overlooked heredity, 
 rooted two generations back, resulted in drink- 
 ing, and drinking resulted in worse. He left
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 143 
 
 her last spring for a woman such as Fanny never 
 saw in her life. Fanny has two children, and 
 that sort of ill health which heartbreak creates in 
 women, a disorder not catalogued in the medical 
 books. Her family lost their property when her 
 father died, and to-day I had her advertising 
 cards. They set forth the fact that Mrs. Fanny 
 Freer, masseuse, will treat patients at their own 
 homes for one dollar an hour. She will also 
 repair ladies' dresses, ar\d cut and make chil- 
 dren's clothes. 
 
 I call it Greek because she has not made any 
 fuss about it, but has endured her fate with a 
 terrible and splendid dumbness for which, again, 
 as a sex, we are not distinguished. She is a lit- 
 tle blonde thing, too, with a dimple, and a bow- 
 and-arrow mouth, and always had more gloves 
 than I did at school. 
 
 I have been ailing lately, I don't know just 
 why. I wonder if I could afford to send for her 
 a few times ? It might be at least a comfort to 
 her to come here, where she will be asked to sit 
 at table with the family. 
 
 In face of a fate like this, how my half-grown 
 troubles hang their heads ! I seem to see them 
 in a row, standing like school-boys punished for 
 playing at Indian massacre. " You foolish fel- 
 lows ! " I say. " You are a shabby lot. There
 
 144 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 is n't an Indian among you ! Any respectable 
 tomahawk would disown you." 
 
 I am beginning to understand that happiness 
 in marriage is an art. I used to think it was a 
 gift. In short, what I thought was a right proves 
 to be a privilege. 
 
 November the twenty-third. 
 
 ... I HOPE I have not been exacting with Dana. 
 He calls me so, when he is vexed about any- 
 thing. I never was thought exacting in any 
 other relation of life ; but marriage makes a new 
 being of a woman : a wife is as truly born into 
 an unknown world as her child is. It seems to 
 me that I have my own character to form, as 
 completely as my daughter's. I, Mama Trent, 
 slain on my wedding-day, am a transmigrated 
 soul the "twice-born," as the Buddhist calls it. 
 I am in my second existence. . . . Will there 
 be any others ? 
 
 I found something in one of Max Miiller's 
 Oriental Bibles yesterday over in Father's library, 
 when I went to sit with him and read to him, 
 for Father is not quite well this fall, and it is 
 touching to me to see how he clings to what he 
 calls my " womanly tenderness." (He never 
 said that I was exacting.) Here is what I read to 
 Father : 
 
 Though I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by a 
 strong wind, have mercy, Almighty, have mercy !
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 145 
 
 . . . Oh, I cannot deceive myself, or call 
 things by opalescent names, any longer ! My 
 husband is not kind to me, he is not kind ! 
 
 November the twenty-seventh. 
 
 WE took our Thanksgiving dinner with Father, 
 and Dana went to the Curtises' later in the even- 
 ing. I had to come back and stay with the baby, 
 to let the girls go out. She is asleep, and the 
 house is as still as resignation. I cannot write, 
 and have been trying to read. Dana says I do 
 not keep up with current thought, and that a 
 wife should make herself as attractive to her hus- 
 band intellectually as she was before marriage. 
 The first sentence I fell upon was this, from a 
 French critic : 
 
 It is well that passionate love is rare. Its principal effect is to 
 detach men from all their surroundings, to isolate them, 
 . . . and a civilized society composed of lovers would return 
 infallibly to misery and barbarism. 
 
 I think a woman should be quite happy in 
 order to keep up with current thought. Current 
 feeling is as much as I can manage. 
 
 TELEPHONE MESSAGE 
 
 " November the thirtieth. 
 " Main 20. 
 " To Mr. Dana Herwin, from Mrs. Herwin. 
 
 " By the maid to the office-boy. Peter will deliver as soon 
 as Mr. Herwin comes in.
 
 146 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Dr. Curtis sent Dr. Hazelton over to see the 
 baby this noon. He calls it croup. When will 
 you be out"? MARNA." 
 
 TELEGRAM 
 
 " New Tork, November 30. 
 " To Mrs. Dana Herwin. 
 
 " Called suddenly to New York on business. 
 Did not return to office. Hope child is better. 
 Address Astor House. DANA." 
 
 TELEPHONE MESSAGE 
 " The office-boy to the maid. 
 
 "Say, Luella, you tell her he ain't got that 
 message. He took the Limited, and never 
 showed up, only a district messenger that sassed 
 me, and I showed him the door. 
 
 " PETER." 
 
 TELEGRAM 
 
 " Astor House, New Tork, December 1. 
 "To Mrs. Dana Her win. 
 
 " Yours received too late for midnight express. 
 Will return Limited. Hazelton all right. He '11 
 bring her through. Cheer up. Will catch the 
 3:12. If baby better, telephone station. In 
 that case, take later train. DANA."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 147 
 
 TELEPHONE MESSAGE 
 
 " December the first. 
 ' To Mr. Dana Her win. 
 
 " Care of Chief Operator, West Station. 
 
 " Marion is out of danger. Do as you please 
 about hurrying home. She is still sick, but safe. 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 December the first, 10 P.M. 
 
 I KNEW he was a good, true, clever man, but I 
 did not know before that Robert Hazelton could 
 work a miracle. I never thought to see the day 
 when I should be glad that old Dr. Curtis could 
 not get to my sick child ; but it is my belief that 
 if he had The new methods and the new 
 remedies are wonder-workers in the control of an 
 able and alert mind, fresh from everything and 
 afraid of nothing. Robert was always a coura- 
 geous fellow; but he is so quiet about it that 
 one must know him pretty well to rate his intel- 
 lectual and moral independence at anything like 
 its value. 
 
 Together we fought for the baby's life all 
 night. What a night ! Solemn, separate from 
 all nights, it stands apart in .my life the look 
 of my child's face, the way her little hands 
 clutched at the air ; and the strong, still figure 
 beside me, grasping her from death. . . . He
 
 148 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 told me to go to bed, and that she could be 
 trusted with Luella. I can't do it. I don't 
 think I could do it even if Dana had got home ; 
 and he won't be here till half-past eleven. He 
 telephoned that it was very important, something 
 political, and that if the child were out of danger, 
 he would take the eleven-two ; unless, he said, I 
 wished him to come right out"? I told him to 
 do as he pleased, and that it was not at all 
 necessary. 
 
 He is away so much that he does not seem 
 necessary in these days to very much of anything. 
 I suppose most wives have that feeling. I hope 
 they do not all have another, which persists and 
 pursues me this feeling hurt, hurt all the time. 
 My whole soul is raw, as if it were flayed with 
 some petty instrument or utensil, like an awl or 
 a grater; something not to be dignified as a 
 weapon. 
 
 He says he loves the child as much as I do. 
 I thought at first that we should grow nearer and 
 be dearer on account of the baby. But I am 
 kept at home so much with her, and I can't go 
 about, as I used to do, with him ; and Dana 
 hates sickness, and all babies are ailing more or 
 less. Even the experience of parentage, which 
 I thought was to unite, seems subtly to divide 
 us. Everything almost that we experience de-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 149 
 
 velops the sundering, not the soldering, quality. 
 One day Mrs. Gray said to me : 
 
 " My dear, marriage is full of phases. Don't 
 mistake them for finalities." 
 
 I suppose that is my tendency to look upon 
 the stages of a thing as the end of it. When 
 one is caught on a barbed-wire fence, one does 
 not contemplate the beauties of the horizon. 
 
 I am writing because I cannot sleep till he 
 gets home. There would be no use in keeping 
 Luella up, and I am happier to watch the baby. 
 Only to hear her breathe is ecstasy. All last 
 night I had a strange, scared feeling. It seemed 
 monstrous that her father should not be there if 
 she died. And when she lived, it seemed some- 
 how abnormal that it should be Robert who 
 saved her. I have never thought of him as a 
 doctor, only as one of my old friends. In fact, 
 since I have been married, I have scarcely thought 
 of him at all. 
 
 He, on his side, seemed to have forgotten that 
 we were ever friends. He was all doctor. I 
 don't think he had an idea in his head except to 
 save my baby's life not because she was mine, 
 but because she was a baby. His face was set 
 and stern ; it was as strong as bronze. His per- 
 emptory orders rang like those of some military 
 man, a stranger, or some one you had only hap-
 
 150 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 pened to meet. I always liked his voice. I 
 don't think he looked as short as he used to. It 
 seemed to me as if he had grown. He came 
 again at noon, and again this evening. When 
 he went away at nine, he said : " Go to sleep. 
 The child is safe. Do not sit up for your hus- 
 band. You are exhausted." 
 
 " I will meet him at the station and tell him 
 to come in softly," he added, as he shut the 
 door. 
 
 I did not even thank him, or think, till after- 
 ward, how kind that was, or how like him. If I 
 had, I doubt if I could have spoken. His man- 
 ner was as impersonal as if he had been a 
 physiological laboratory. Now that I think of 
 it, I don't believe he gave the least evidence of 
 anything that could possibly be called sympathy 
 in all that terrible time. I begin, now that the 
 strain is over, to perceive how kind this was in 
 him. I wanted my husband so all the time, I 
 perished so for Dana, that one tender word would 
 have demoralized me. I should have cried my 
 soul out. And that would have been bad for the 
 baby. I suppose physicians acquire a sorcery 
 about all these things ; they never cross the magic 
 circles. 
 
 I wonder if I ought not to write to Robert 
 and thank him properly ?
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 151 
 
 "DEAR DR. HAZELTON : I disobeyed you, for I 
 cannot sleep till my husband gets home. So I 
 am writing. And I know that I shall rest bet- 
 ter if I try to tell you how we feel about what 
 you have done for the baby. But, now that I 
 try, I cannot tell you ; all my words deny me. 
 Her father will see you at once, and express to 
 you our affectionate gratitude for the professional 
 skill and the personal kindness which have saved 
 our child. I expect him now, every minute. 
 
 " Yours gratefully and as ever sincerely, 
 
 " MARNA HERWIN." 
 
 December the twelfth. 
 
 I HAVE been shut in so much with the baby, 
 lately, that I have read rather more than usual. 
 I hoped this would please Dana, but I can't say 
 that he has seemed aware of any accumulated in- 
 tellectual force in me. He says I am narrowing 
 to a domestic horizon. Thinking to amuse him 
 to-day, I carried him this, from an old author : 
 
 Woman ought every morning to put on the slippers of 
 humility, the shift of decorum, the corset of charity, the 
 garters of steadfastness, the pins of patience. . . . 
 
 . . . But it is by no means proved that even then a man 
 would not find his wife a little overdressed. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " That makes a good point," he said. " A
 
 152 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 fixed sense of moral superiority has a tendency 
 to become tiresome. A fellow resents being 
 always put in the wrong." 
 
 " Even if he is wrong *? " I asked. 
 
 " Possibly because he is wrong," replied my 
 husband, with a changed expression. He glanced 
 over the book, and left the room abruptly. I saw 
 him go over to the Curtises' on his way to the 
 trolley; there were fifteen minutes to spare. I 
 did not feel at all surprised perhaps not really 
 altogether sorry that he did not spend those 
 fifteen minutes with me. Once I should have 
 grieved. I could hear him playing a duet with 
 Minnie, some rollicking thing. He says she 
 accompanies very finely; his violin has been 
 over there for some time. After he had gone, I 
 took up the book, which he had laid face down 
 upon the baby's crib. His swift and slender 
 pencil-point had run beside these words : 
 
 Only a saint can endure a wearing woman. 
 
 " December the thirteenth. 
 
 "My DEAR DANA: Will you be patient with 
 one of my constitutional notes'? It is a good 
 while since I have written you any, for I see that 
 they sometimes annoy you in these days, and in- 
 deed I do not mean to be troublesome. But do
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 153 
 
 you realize, my dear, how hard it is becoming 
 for us to talk ? I so often displease you, God 
 knows why. Or you hurt me, though I am sure 
 you do not mean to. I find sometimes that if I 
 have anything of any consequence to say to you, 
 I must write it, or not say it at all. You call it 
 second nature in me to write my heart out. I 
 wonder if it is first nature, and speech only the 
 second one ? 
 
 ** At all events, I found the sentence you had 
 marked in that old English book yesterday. I 
 think you can understand that it has troubled 
 me a little. Do you mind telling me, Dana, 
 what you meant by marking it ? 
 " Your loving 
 
 " MARNA, Wife." 
 
 " Thursday afternoon. 
 
 " DEAR DANA : If you have really forgotten 
 what sentence it was, there is nothing to be said. 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 Friday evening. 
 
 DID he forget? Had he truly forgotten? If 
 so, either I am " too strenuous," as he calls me, 
 or he was too frivolous. If not, then I am not 
 strenuous enough, and my husband was not 
 quite no, no, no ! Forever, no ! Not to my
 
 154 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 own heart, not to this secret page, will I pro- 
 nounce the word. 
 
 A " wearing woman " ? She who was the 
 dearest, the sweetest, the gentlest, the most ten- 
 der, the loveliest of girls, the noblest of wives 
 to him *? I who had all the superlatives of love 
 crowded at my feet, treasures heaped for my sake 
 in a passion of such adoring madness as an older 
 and wiser woman than I might have spent her- 
 self upon, and must have trusted I, Marna 
 Trent, once free and glad, now afraid to own to 
 my own soul how sad I am now bond-slave 
 to this man for my love's sake, and for his do I 
 wear upon my husband *? 
 
 Then God help us, both the man and the 
 woman, if this be true ! 
 
 If I had been like some girls I have seen, if I 
 had not cared, or taken pains to please him 
 Why, I know a young wife who danced all 
 night one night when her husband lay battling 
 for his life at the crisis of typhoid pneumonia, 
 and he lived too, poor fellow. Even in our own 
 set, and we are not at all " smart," thank Heaven ! 
 such things go on as I cannot, I cannot understand 
 other men and other pleasures, any other 
 pleasures but those he shares with her, and their 
 children abandoned to nurses, and a wall of snow 
 forming all the time between the husband and
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 155 
 
 the wife ; glittering snow, beautiful, carved, like 
 the mattress that Catharine of Russia presented 
 as a bridal gift to some persons whose marriage 
 she did not favor, and the mattress was found to 
 be cut out of solid ice. . . . 
 
 . . . AND yet, if a woman does not make a man 
 happy, has she any right to assume that it is his 
 fault 1 ? It seems to me as if the blame must be 
 my own, in some perplexing way that I do not 
 understand. If my mother were alive, I suppose 
 she could tell me where I am wrong. To whom 
 can I turn? The popular creed that married 
 people should never seek advice of any third 
 person seems to me a doubtful dogma. The 
 two-in-one life tends, by a subtle chemistry the 
 formula of which is too abstruse for me, to defi- 
 nitely distinct points of view, and only the ideal 
 oneness can reconcile these; if not reconciled, 
 they may need a third view as much as hydrogen 
 and oxygen need an electric spark to combine 
 them. There are times when I think that Dana 
 is wholly in the wrong, because his offense is so 
 obvious. There are whole weeks when I try to 
 feel myself in error, implicit if not explicit. My 
 standards of right and wrong are wavering, like 
 flags in the breeze; serving to show only which 
 way the wind is, and sometimes so twisted
 
 156 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 around their poles that they are of no sort of use 
 as flags. Then, there is more or less wet 
 weather, when they hang limp and soaked. 
 
 I SAW a steam-carriage the other day take fire 
 from its own gasolene, owing to some defect in 
 the machinery ; it burned up, yet it did not ex- 
 plode; the sealed tank remained true to its duty. 
 Is it miracle or science that married happiness 
 may come so near destruction and yet retain the 
 sealed tank fire within fire solid and safe ? 
 
 IF he is right, then I must be radically wrong. 
 God knows, if He knows anything about me, 
 how much I would rather suffer than not to be 
 right in this subtle and fatal contention which 
 marriage evolves from love. Or, again, I would, 
 how gladly, be proved to be in the wrong, if that 
 would make him right. I do not ask to be this 
 or that, if only he is blameless. Sometimes I 
 think nothing else in life matters at all. 
 
 A NATURE may crumble from sheer dishar- 
 mony in its own elements. A man may be a 
 beautiful amalgam : gold on his brow, and iron 
 in his arms ; but if his feet are clay, he falls. 
 Women kiss the clay, and cover it with their
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 157 
 
 hair, and baptize it with their tears, even as she 
 of the sacred story kissed the Holy Feet, as white 
 as marble, and as strong, which trod the dust of 
 Palestine patiently never any less the feet of 
 a man because they left the imprint of the God. 
 
 I READ to-day about a vine that is impelled by 
 hunger and thirst. " During a severe drought, 
 if you place a basin of water at night say two 
 feet to the left or right of a stray vine, in the 
 morning it will be found bathing in the basin!" 
 It was a squash-vine, by the way. 
 
 Camille Flammarion said that he knew " an 
 heroic jasmine which went eight times through 
 a board that kept the light away from it." Some 
 teasing person would put back the jasmine in the 
 shade, " hoping to wear out the flower's energy, 
 but he did not succeed." 
 
 If a woman were a jasmine, she would be 
 " heroic." If I were a squash, I should at least 
 be respected for the hunger and thirst of my 
 nature. 
 
 December the twenty-third. 
 
 POOR Fanny Freer came here to-day, for I have 
 not been very well. I kept her to luncheon, 
 and gave up everything else and sat with her as 
 long as she could stay. She has not many pa-
 
 158 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 tients, and sewed for Marion in the afternoon. 
 She carries herself with a touching dignity. I 
 watched her dimple and her bow-and-arrow 
 mouth, and then the lines on her forehead, as if I 
 had seen a baby crucified. Neither of us men- 
 tioned her husband in any way, though she spoke 
 of her children freely. We talked a little about 
 the perplexities of modern life, as they affect 
 women. I think I expected to find her embit- 
 tered, or inclined to rate marriage by her own 
 pitiable experience. Nothing could be further 
 from the fact. I think she makes a point of her 
 sweet reasonableness a definite struggle. And 
 she thinks there is no country where there are 
 more happy marriages than in America. 
 
 Then I suggested that women are apt to reason 
 too much from personal data. I did not add 
 that she had developed the force of character to 
 rise above this racial trait, but I wished to do so. 
 Fanny is one of those rose-petals that unexpect- 
 edly produce the strength of oak-leaves; not 
 falling before storm and sleet, but holding the 
 harder. One sees such women. 
 
 I asked her she has had some experience in 
 her business in town, before she moved out here 
 whether she found patients infatuated with 
 their doctors. 
 
 " Very seldom," replied the masseuse, " unless
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 159 
 
 now and then a married woman whose husband 
 neglects her because she is sick." She added 
 that a doctor would find it hard work to culti- 
 vate illusions about his patients, and that this 
 fact alone was enough to clear the atmosphere. 
 
 I never cared for Fanny at school, but now I 
 could love her if I had time. When she went 
 away, I wanted to throw my arms about her and 
 cry: 
 
 " How did it happen ? How do you bear it *? 
 Why are you alive *? " 
 
 Instead, we talked of neuralgia and patterns. 
 I never knew anything about patterns before. It 
 seems there is a vast world where these things 
 are important to women. 
 
 I wonder if I do not overweigh my troubles. 
 Dana says I do. He says I have a genius for 
 being unhappy. Yet it seems to me as if I did 
 not ask much to make me happy a kind word, 
 a kiss, some little thoughtful act. All a woman 
 wants is to be considered, to be valued. All she 
 wants is love all she wants is the Life Eternal. 
 I suppose this is an immoderate demand some- 
 thing like the demand of a moth for personal 
 immortality. 
 
 December the twenty-fifth. 
 
 CHRISTMAS again ! I have had a happy day. 
 Dana has been at home all day, and last evening
 
 160 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 he came in laughing, and splendid, with Marion's 
 first Christmas tree across his shoulder he 
 handsome enough to break a woman's heart if 
 he did not love her, and perhaps (God knows) if 
 he did. Mine melted before the vision of him 
 as the ice was melting on the tree-house. It is a 
 South Carolina Christmas, and needs only a wild 
 pink azalea in the tree-house, or the scent of jas- 
 mine on the wet, warm air. 
 
 " You beauty ! " I cried. " You look like the 
 Santa Claus ideal. I 've always thought it a 
 mistake to make an old man of him. You are 
 young, immortal fatherhood. Kiss her, Dana ! " 
 
 I held the baby up, and he kissed her raptur- 
 ously ; then he put her down and took me. No, 
 it was not rapturous no. And yet I think it 
 was love. I tried not to think, not to reason 
 about it. I have learned that it is not wise for a 
 woman to philosophize about love, and that it is 
 dangerous for a wife to do so. 
 
 Job began to whine when my husband kissed 
 me, as he has always done from the very first; 
 he never gets used to it, and lately he has had 
 something of a respite from this source of mel- 
 ancholy. There is that in the dog's constancy 
 which touches me, I must say. He has become 
 accustomed to the baby, though he still cherishes 
 a smoldering jealousy of her. But his feeling
 
 'WITH MARION'S FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE ACROSS HIS SHOULDER."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 161 
 
 about Dana is something finer than jealousy. In 
 fact, Job never accepted the man for the master; 
 why, then, he reasons, should I ? 
 
 Dana and I covered the Landseer dogs to- 
 night (they had grown too shabby) with a dado 
 or frieze of Greek figures. I cut up an old 
 book of Parthenon plates for it, and Dana helped 
 me paste them on; he did not once object he 
 was very kind. And he patted the Landseer 
 dogs, and called them David and Dora, and Job 
 growled and snarled at them, and Marion laughed 
 like a brook at Job : she has developed her 
 father's laugh. He has given her a boy doll (of 
 all things) nearly as large as herself, and she is 
 flirting with it like a summer girl with the 
 only man in the hotel. Dana named the doll 
 Dombey. 
 
 We went to Father's after Marion was in bed, 
 for he is too feeble to get over here ; and I read 
 to him awhile. Dana asked me if I minded his 
 running over to the Curtises' for some music 
 while I was reading. I said, "Not in the least." 
 I was so pleased at his asking me that I did n't 
 care at all. And when we came home he sat 
 down at his own piano, and tossed his curling 
 head, and sang : 
 
 Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest.
 
 162 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Then he wheeled on the piano-stool with his 
 beautiful, best look, and crushed me to his heart. 
 " You 're a dear old girl ! " he said. 
 
 December the thirty-first. 
 
 A SUBMERGED country ! The Atlantis of the 
 New England climate has evaded us, and it is 
 incredible that azaleas can swing their pink 
 lamps anywhere, or that jasmine can breathe its 
 heart out on any loving air. The tree-house is 
 stiff with icicles this morning, and the world has 
 got itself into armor, and stirs formidably and 
 heavily, like a medieval lord who kisses his lady 
 in the evening and leaves her in the morning for 
 the wars. 
 
 The transformation happened in the night. 
 It was still warm last evening, and Dana brought 
 Minnie Curtis over to play for him here; but 
 the furnace was overheated, and they went out 
 on Ararat and serenaded me, instead ; he played 
 his violin, and they both sang " Where'er you 
 walk," and some other things that he used to 
 sing to me. He asked me if I did not enjoy it, 
 and said he thought he was giving me a treat. 
 
 *' Why in thunder did n't you come out with 
 us ? " he asked when he came in, after taking 
 Minnie home. 
 
 " You knew Marion had one of her throats,"
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 163 
 
 I said. " I could n't leave her even if I had 
 been invited." 
 
 " A wife should never wait to be invited" he 
 retorted. " It looked queer, that 's all. A wife 
 ought to think how things look." 
 
 "And a husband?" I ventured. "What 
 about him ? " 
 
 The moment I had said it, I would have un- 
 said it at any estimable cost. I think it was 
 George Eliot who suggested that half the misery 
 of women's lives would be prevented if they 
 could only teach themselves to keep back the 
 things which they had resolved not to say. But 
 a resolution is a mathematical matter, takes 
 perceptible time, and my fate was too swift 
 for me. 
 
 " I should n't have thought," observed my 
 husband, coldly, " that you had it in you, Marna, 
 to be a jealous woman." 
 
 Then, indeed, I turned upon him. 
 
 "I? Jealous? Of Minnie Curtis? ... I 
 should as soon think of being jealous of 
 Dombey ! " 
 
 " I would n't insult your neighbors, if I were 
 you," he blazed. " A rag doll " 
 
 " Dombey is n't rag; he 's wax," I interrupted. 
 
 " Wax, then," said Dana, pettishly. He went 
 into his own room and shut the door hard.
 
 164 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 This morning I scarcely dared to speak to 
 him, he was so manifestly offended, and he went 
 to his day's work without the ceremony of a 
 kiss. That a kiss should ever become a cere- 
 mony is this most pitiable or most merciful ? 
 
 WHEN a liner is in fear of invisible icebergs she 
 takes the temperature of the sea to test the ques- 
 tion of their vicinity. 
 
 When my husband came home to dinner, I 
 took all the temperatures I could, dipping here 
 and there, and recording my poor little ther- 
 mometers, as women do. Half the time I am 
 sawn asunder by the conflict between love and 
 self-respect. In men these two are one flesh ; in 
 women oh, in women they must be sometimes, 
 or the race would be exterminated by civil war. 
 (I think there is a declaration of war between 
 my metaphors, but, thank Heaven, I am not 
 writing for the magazines.) 
 
 At all events, I found a field of icebergs driv- 
 ing straight across the bows, and put the ship 
 about. Marion and Job and I are spending the 
 evening up here by ourselves and Dombey. 
 Marion is asleep in her crib, and Dombey re- 
 poses beside her, as usual, with his head hanging 
 over the crib-rail, and his feet on the pillow. I 
 have some doubts of the effects of this habit 
 upon my daughter's manners, Dombey is so big
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 165 
 
 and so very boy ; but Dana thinks it an excel- 
 lent joke. Marion has begun to demand a little 
 brother, and perhaps Dombey may fill the defi- 
 ciency. Dombey has become a painful subject 
 to me all at once, since last night. I could burn 
 him up, or snip him to pieces. I took Marion 
 to-day to see a big lady doll in a shop, in hopes 
 of effecting an honorable exchange ; but though 
 the lady doll, two feet high, and glorious in a 
 wedding-dress spangled with gold-dust, hung 
 upon the arm of a red bridegroom in a fireman's 
 uniform, my daughter clung obstinately to Dom- 
 bey. I must say I respected her loyalty, while 
 I cannot say that I did not pity her for it. 
 Where will it take her twenty years hence ? 
 
 Does Dana expect me to come down and 
 storm his tenderness *? Must a woman make all 
 the advance^ after marriage, as she must make 
 none before *? Then shall we never be happy, 
 for I cannot, cannot do it. 
 
 Must she always be the first to institute recon- 
 ciliations ? Must she forever forswear herself, 
 and say, " I was wrong," though she knows, on 
 the honor of her own soul, that she was right *? 
 
 Thursday evening. 
 
 VOLTAIRE said that a man could never be in the 
 wrong if he made the first advance toward an 
 offended woman.
 
 166 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 NOTE SENT BY LUELLA 
 
 *' DEAR DARLING : Don't let us make each 
 other miserable any longer ! I cannot bear it. 
 My heart will break, to live this way. I will 
 come down if you wish me to or perhaps, 
 even, you would come up ? I will do whichever 
 you wish, whatever you want, anything to make 
 you happy, Dear. Only be kind to me, Dana ! 
 Only be tender and loving, as you used to be, 
 and I will try harder to please you, to do as you 
 wish, to be what you require : 
 
 Meet, if thou require it, 
 
 Both demands, 
 Laying flesh and spirit 
 
 In thy hands. 
 
 Was I wrong about Minnie ? Did I speak 
 petulantly? I did not mean to. I don't care 
 how much you play duets with Minnie, indeed 
 I don't. I am not one of the foolish folk. I scorn 
 a jealous wife as much as you do. And that was 
 why I felt so But never mind that. Forgive 
 me if I was wrong, Dana, and let us be happy 
 again ! We used to be happy. We know we 
 can. We are not chasing an experiment, but 
 holding an experience. 
 
 "Darling, shall I come down to you? Or
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 167 
 
 would you rather Do whatever you would 
 like best, only love 
 
 " Your 
 
 " WIFE." 
 
 An hour later. 
 
 I HAVE stopped crying, it waked the baby, 
 and have lain crushed upon the pillows as long 
 as I can bear it. He sent a note by Luella 
 the first he has ever written to me in the same 
 house. He did not come up at all. I pin the 
 note upon this page. 
 
 *' DEAR MARNA : I don't feel very happy to- 
 night, and I doubt if we can amuse each other 
 successfully. Your note is all right, and I ac- 
 cept your apology, of course, and we won't say 
 any more about it. But I think I '11 go to town 
 for the evening, and come out on the last elec- 
 tric. If I don't get out, don't worry. I should 
 be at the club. Go to bed and to sleep. 
 
 "AfPately, DANA." 
 
 A GREAT mood has taken the weather since sun- 
 set. The ice has suddenly yielded again (like a 
 woman), and a storm is coming up ; it will be a 
 fight between sleet and tears all night. The wind 
 raves about the tree-house, and the banshee in my
 
 i68 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 room begins to moan slowly and subtly, as if she 
 were trying her voice with a view to a mighty out- 
 cry by and by. The soul of the storm is in me, 
 as it was in the beginning and ever shall be. 
 Worn and worried as I am, half disillusioned of 
 myself, yet would I escape myself for the storm's 
 sake, and because I feel in every fiber of my be- 
 ing as if it would shelter me. I would fling the 
 window up, and let myself go, and ride upon the 
 wings of the east wind, for it understands me, 
 and I love it, and I would trust it, though it 
 took me God knows where. And I would be 
 borne into some wide caverns of the night, 
 where love is always tender (being love), and 
 tenderness, because it is gentle, is always true; 
 and where a woman, lest she perish, is cherished 
 by the mystery that won her. 
 
 . . . And what, pray, would become of my 
 daughter"? And Dombey? 
 
 January the twentieth. 
 
 SOME people came to dinner at Father's yester- 
 day, with wives ; and he asked me to come over 
 and help him out. Dana was away, so I went 
 alone. After dinner the ladies discussed various 
 social phenomena of the day; they did this with 
 delicacy and earnestness; they spoke of noble
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 169 
 
 friendships as distinct from ignoble follies, and 
 one of them suggested that salvation from the 
 last might lie partly in the existence of the first. 
 The other hesitated. 
 
 "Friendship needs nourishment as well as 
 love," she said, "and one goes hungry in a 
 week." 
 
 " I should call it about five days," re- 
 plied the other, slowly. Then they both laughed, 
 and changed the subject to the religious views 
 of the new governor. 
 
 I could not join in the conversation intelli- 
 gently, and I did not find it amusing. I have 
 never felt the need of friendship. My husband 
 has always been my friend. Now is he so 
 much as that *? He seems to be eluding my 
 real life by a strange and fatal process. I do not 
 know how to account for it, or how to define it. 
 It is as if I stood on the edge of a precipice, and 
 saw him disappearing from my sight, a hundred 
 feet below, drawn down by a quicksand of the 
 true nature of which he is, or chooses to appear, 
 ignorant. The descent is subtle and slow; it is 
 not even dignified by the anguish of conscious 
 death; debonair, and smiling steadily, he sinks 
 by inches. I can even hear him sing, as he suc- 
 cumbs without a struggle:
 
 170 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I love thee, I love but thee! 
 
 Till the sun grows cold, 
 And the stars are old 
 
 If I sprang, and dashed myself down to reach 
 him what then *? He would probably stop 
 singing (he has stopped, this minute, abruptly 
 and unhappily) and observe without a smile : 
 " A wife should not annoy her husband." 
 It is possible that he might select the word 
 "pursue"; he is capable of it; and that would 
 outrage me so that I should quite regret my 
 amiable impulse. If we could sink together, 
 there would be some comfort in it. I am sure I 
 should not mind a quicksand in the least. I 
 would rather suffer with him than be happy with- 
 out him. But he he would be happy at any 
 cost. I do not think it is at all clear to him 
 whether default of happiness is to be attributed 
 to the institution of marriage or is (more simply) 
 my fault. 
 
 Friday. 
 
 DANA has lost his engagement-ring; he says the 
 tourmalins were growing shabby, anyway, and 
 one of them was broken. 
 
 " Sunday evening. 
 
 "My DEAR DANA: After what has happened 
 to-day, I cannot no, I cannot see you again
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 171 
 
 to-night. Luella will bring up Marion's supper, 
 and I do not want any. I am sorry to leave you 
 alone on Sunday evening. 
 
 " No, I shall not say anything to Father. I 
 must bear it as best I can. 
 
 "Your WIFE." 
 
 " Midnight. 
 
 " OH, ask me to forgive you ! Ask me, 
 Dana! For love's sake and your own sake 
 not for mine. All my being stretches out its 
 arms to you. I would forget would love you, 
 trust you, and begin again, if you will try to be 
 more patient with me, if you will remember to 
 be kind to 
 
 " Your 
 
 " MISERABLE MARNA." 
 
 March the thirteenth. 
 
 DANA has the grippe, the real thing; he has 
 been sick for ten days, and persistently refuses to 
 have a doctor, so of course it has gone hard with 
 him, poor fellow. I have taken care of him as 
 best I could. I have not had my clothes off for 
 three nights, for he needs a good many things, 
 and one takes cold so easily, getting in and out 
 of a warm bed. I brush his hair a good deal, to 
 make him sleepy, and I read to him hours at a
 
 172 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 time. A man is so unused to suffering that a 
 woman, if she loves him, cannot help being pa- 
 tient with him ; that is a matter of course. If 
 she can help it, if she resents the natural irrita- 
 bility of his race too much, I am almost prepared 
 to say that she does not love him. 
 
 Sometimes, wherr I am very tired, when I can 
 scarcely keep on my feet, and he does seem 
 almost unreasonable, I say to myself: 
 
 " Suppose you had never had the right to 
 take care of him? Suppose he were sick in 
 some remote place, and you could not get to 
 him?" 
 
 An hour ago he fell heavily asleep, for he 
 insisted on taking a dose of laudanum (I could 
 not help it; he will, now and then, when he has 
 pain to bear), and I was on the edge of the bed 
 beside him, for I had been trying to magnetize 
 the pain in his head with passes of my hands. 
 I could, for the first year after we were married, 
 quite often, but not lately. I had hoped to fore- 
 stall the laudanum in that way to-night; but he 
 would not give me the chance ; he would not 
 wait. So I was sitting cramped and crooked 
 (that is why I am writing, to try to drive the 
 ache out of my body by a little exercise of my 
 brain), and his handsome head lay upon my arm 
 and shoulder, and his curling hair stirred with my
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 173 
 
 breath. He looked more than ill he looked 
 lonely and wretched ; and for the first time I saw 
 lines across his forehead, the real carving of life 
 cut clearly. 
 
 " He, too, has unhappiness," I thought. " It 
 is not I alone. In marriage one cannot do any- 
 thing alone not even suffer." 
 
 " You poor, poor boy ! " I thought. And I 
 laid my cheek upon his, and then I kissed him 
 softly. He did not wake, and I kissed him a 
 good many times as I used to do. He did 
 not know it. 1 
 
 " July the sixth. 
 
 " OH, Dana, can't we begin again ? Is there 
 no way of blazing our path back through the 
 forest of married life *? I tell you, from my soul, 
 if there is not, we are lost. I do not know how 
 it is with you I do not know how anything is 
 with you in these times on which we have fallen; 
 sometimes I think I understand almost any other 
 friend I have better than I do my husband. But, 
 for me, I perish. All my nature is astray, a 
 homeless, hapless thing. 
 
 " Do not think that I blame you, Dear, or 
 throw our mutual misery too solidly upon your 
 
 1 A three months' silence precedes the date of the next entry, but no pages 
 have been mutilated or removed from the manuscript. On the contrary, there 
 has, it seems, been no effort whatever to add to the record in any way. M. A.
 
 174 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 shoulders. I know that I was very young, that 
 I gain the tact of experience more slowly than 
 most wives, that I crave a good deal of tender- 
 ness perhaps I am ' exacting,' as you say. I 
 know that I do not learn to be alone readily, and 
 that I grieve over little things. I am afraid my 
 heart is a ganglion, not a muscle, for it quivers 
 and winces at everything. Indeed, I try to be 
 different, to be patient, not to expect too much. 
 Oh, believe that I do try to be the kind of 
 woman you prefer. 
 
 " It seems to me that if we could go back and 
 try all over again, we might be happy yet. 
 Love does not die. Love is the life everlasting. 
 It suffers maladies and syncopes, and it may be 
 hard beset, and have to fight for its life but it 
 is alive, Dana, and it must be cherished like any 
 other living thing. We have laws and penalties 
 for the slayers of men. What court sits in judg- 
 ment on the murderers of love ? Somewhere in 
 the spaces and silences there must be such an 
 inviolate bar. Shall you and I go there, hand- 
 cuffed together, waiting judgment*? Oh, my 
 darling, what can we plead V Mighty joy was in 
 our power, and we slew it, between us. We 
 were the happiest lovers, ours was the maddest, 
 gladdest bridal, we had reverence and ecstasy, 
 and our real went so far to outrun our ideal that
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 175 
 
 we left our ideal behind us and now the feet 
 of our real move heavily, and the race is spent. 
 We covered the face of delight with our mar- 
 riage pillows, and smothered it till it breathed no 
 more. So we buried it, for it stared upon us. 
 We two, man and woman, elected to a great 
 fate, slayers of a supreme love, recreant to a 
 mighty trust who will take our brief? 
 
 " MARNA, a Wife." 
 
 " Sunday evening. 
 
 " MY DEAR HUSBAND : I have reached the 
 point where I cannot live and go on as we are. 
 " Your loving and unhappy 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 " Monday. 
 
 " DEAR DANA : I think if I could die, I should 
 not hesitate long. MARNA." 
 
 " July the tenth. 
 
 "DANA MY DARLING: What happened this 
 morning distresses me so that I cannot wait till 
 to-morrow, and you said you should not come 
 back to-night. What can I do for you to make 
 you happier, more calm ? You have not been 
 yourself for months, I think. Are you ill?
 
 176 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Does something ail you that you keep from me ? 
 I am sorry if I called you cross when you were 
 suffering. I ought not to mind things so much, 
 I know. I think this terrible weather is too 
 much for you. I feel it a little myself. If I 
 were you, I would go directly to the sea some- 
 where, and I send this in to the office to propose 
 it with all my heart. I will not mourn, and I 
 will try not to miss you. 
 
 " As you say, we cannot afford to move the 
 whole family ; and as you see, I cannot leave 
 Father this summer, he is so feeble. He spoke 
 of the Dowe Cottage in the spring, but lately he 
 has said nothing about it; he acts a little 
 strangely about his affairs. Has it ever occurred 
 to you that he has lost anything any property, 
 I mean? Once he would have told you; but 
 lately you have been so busy, and you see so 
 little of him. And he never talks business to 
 me. 
 
 " As long as Marion keeps well, I can stand 
 it. Dear, I don't mind it much. I can take her 
 over to Father's, where the rooms are large 
 enough to shut up ; and we shall get along 
 nicely. I think you had better go to Bar Har- 
 bor or to Nova Scotia at once, if you feel like it. 
 " Your loyal and loving 
 
 " MARNA."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 177 
 
 TELEGRAM 
 
 " To Dana Her win, 
 
 " Digby, Nova Scotia. 
 
 " Yours received. I did not mean that at all. 
 Oh, try to understand ! MARNA." 
 
 " July the thirtieth. 
 
 " MY DEAR DANA : I telegraphed because I 
 could not bear it that you should mistake me so. 
 I am sure by this time that you will have re-read 
 my letter and my meaning. Must it come to 
 this, that you and I need a new vocabulary to 
 interpret each other in small, common matters 
 like this ? The ' little language ' of love we 
 have lost the art of, like electives one learns at 
 school or college, and then forgets. But the 
 Queen's English, Dana ! Do I use it so stu- 
 pidly? Am I so crass with it that you cannot 
 take me right"? 
 
 " Try to understand me, Dana ! A loving 
 wife is not abstruse. I don't feel in cipher. If 
 I express myself so, it is because I am so afraid 
 of offending you that I am not natural, and so I 
 am not simple. I do not feel at home with my 
 own husband. I try too hard to please you, 
 Dear ! I need so to be comprehended that I 
 cease to be comprehensible.
 
 i;8 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Oh, try, Dana, try to understand 
 
 ** Your wholly longing, always loving 
 
 "WIFE." 
 
 August the seventeenth. 
 
 THE date when a woman accepts the fact that 
 the man she loves cannot or will not understand 
 her, and that she must abandon the attempt to 
 make him do so, is one of the birthdays of ex- 
 perience. These are as definite as the other sort 
 of birthday as my daughter's, for instance, 
 which occurs to-day. 
 
 I don't know whether her father has forgotten 
 it, or whether his letter is delayed. He has been 
 in Washington on some business (I do not know 
 what; I have given up asking now; he gave up 
 telling some time ago), and was so overcome by 
 the cruel heat of the place that he has fled to 
 Maine to cool. I think I read yesterday that 
 the President is in the Rangeleys on a fishing- 
 trip. Dana knows the President, who was a 
 friend of Senator Herwin's, and I have fancied 
 that he values this important acquaintance as 
 one which he does not owe to my father. It is a 
 week since I have heard from Dana. I must 
 say it occurs to me to wonder whether he has 
 gone fishing with the President. In that case, 
 letters will be uncertain. Dana likes to do the
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 179 
 
 uncertain, and I will try to be prepared for any- 
 thing. 
 
 I have bought the big lady doll for Marion, 
 but she regards this acquisition to her family in- 
 differently. Her devotion to Dombey is unassail- 
 able. In deference to this feminine weakness, I 
 contributed a golf-suit to Dombey's wardrobe. 
 She has named the lady doll Banny Doodle a 
 mystical appellation, intended, I think, to be a 
 term of reproach. She is two years old to-night. 
 She calls her father " Pretty Popper," and cried, 
 when she woke up, because Pretty Popper had 
 not come home. To be exact, she calls him 
 " Pity Popper." 
 
 September the fifteenth. 
 
 I ONCE knew a discontented woman who lost 
 an eye and lived in danger of perfect blind- 
 ness. She became suddenly cheerful and 
 charming. 
 
 " It is so much to keep one eye," she said. 
 
 It is two weeks since he came back. He did 
 go fishing with the President, and I heard no- 
 thing from him for ten days; but that seems 
 now so small a trouble, all my troubles are such 
 dwarfs beside this which has happened, that I 
 look upon myself with contempt for having ever 
 been disturbed by them. Life seems to be a long 
 chromatic scale, all its major notes expressed by
 
 i8o CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 its minors, or the other way if you choose. Suf- 
 fering is purely relative. 
 
 Who said, " The young are only happy when 
 they experience pleasure; the old are happy 
 when they are free from pain " ? I have ceased 
 to be young, but have not learned to be old. 
 
 My husband is going as consul to Monte- 
 video. The appointment was offered him, vir- 
 tually, on that fishing-trip, and he formally ac- 
 cepted it the day before he came home. He did 
 this without consulting me. 
 
 September the seventeenth. 
 
 IT is only by fragments, as I have the strength 
 or can compass the courage, that I can write 
 anything about it. Yet I have a confused con- 
 sciousness that I had better record (though to 
 what end God knows) some of the events of 
 these days which flee by me like racers run- 
 ning on thorns, blood-tracked. 
 
 He began the night he got home, nervously, 
 as if he were flayed to have it over : 
 
 " Mama, I have accepted an appointment." 
 " A pleasant one, I hope, Dana *? " 
 "To me yes. I don't think I have been 
 well lately. I want travel, and distance, and a 
 pretty abrupt change of scene. It is a foreign 
 appointment."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 181 
 
 One quick " Ah! " escaped me. After that I 
 did not speak for a good while. I took up the 
 baby, and put her in my lap, as if she were a 
 shield between me and my husband. When I 
 could not look at him, I could bow my face on 
 her soft hair, and it steadied me a little. 
 
 " The President was glad to oblige my father's 
 son. He would have done something different, 
 something better, I think, if he could. There 
 was no other post open but this just now. I 
 don't mind it ; I want a different climate I am 
 really not well, though you never have found it 
 out. Besides, I want something out of the com- 
 mon course a new experience fresh life. A 
 man of my type is not adapted to New England. 
 He perishes of ennui in the life I lead here. At 
 any rate, I 'm going. I am going in October." 
 
 "You did not speak to me about it." 
 My lips were so stiff that I am not sure they 
 articulated the words, but I thought they did. 
 " I am your wife. You did not tell me." 
 
 "What would have been the use*?" he said. 
 "You would only have made a fuss. My mind 
 is quite made. I am going to Uruguay." 
 
 Then I know I spoke out, I think I cried out : 
 
 " Uruguay?" 
 
 I held out the baby at my arm's length be- 
 tween us. I felt as if she might, as if she must,
 
 182 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 protect me from what would happen next. I 
 sat staring. 
 
 "Do shut your mouth," he said fretfully. 
 " That expression is not becoming." 
 
 I put the baby down, for my head swam; I 
 thought I should drop her. She ran over to 
 htm, calling " Pity Popper ! " and poked Dom- 
 bey into his arms to be kissed. He did not 
 touch them, either doll or child. I thought he 
 dared not trust himself. His face worked. I 
 think he said ; 
 
 " We might as well have this scene over." 
 
 " And I ? " I said. " And Marion ? And 
 Father ? Father is failing ; he is a dying man. 
 You knew I could not leave Father now ! 
 You knew we could not take the baby to 
 Uruguay." 
 
 " You can do as you please," he replied stiffly. 
 " You are my wife. You have the right to 
 come, of course. Or I have the right to ask it, 
 for that matter. But I do not press the matter. 
 I wish you to please yourself." 
 
 I got up and went to the window and looked 
 out at the tree-house. It was moonlight, as it 
 was the night he kissed me for the first time, 
 and the shadows from the vines were floating over 
 us. I could hear Minnie Curtis warbling at her 
 piano. She was practising one of Dana's songs:
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 183 
 
 Till the sun grows cold, 
 And the stars are old, 
 And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold! 
 
 I went back, and put my hand upon his arm. 
 " Do you desert me ? " I asked. 
 
 He threw my hand off with an oath. 
 
 " Put me in the wrong as usual ! You 
 always do. I 'm tired of your everlasting supe- 
 riority. If I did leave you, you could n't blame 
 me. Nobody could. We ought to be apart 
 we wear on each other we need absence, a 
 good dose of it, too. We only make each other 
 miserable. We " 
 
 This was not all. I cannot write the rest. 
 Some of his words will sound in my ears till my 
 funeral bell. 
 
 "Very well, Dana," I said. "Do as you 
 please." 
 
 " I do not leave you, you understand ! " he 
 cried hotly. " You are welcome to come with 
 me. Or I will send for you by the next steamer, 
 after I have found some sort of a place for you 
 if you prefer. You are at perfect liberty 
 to come, if you choose." 
 
 " And Marion "? " 
 
 His eye wavered. 
 
 " And Father ? " 
 
 " I did not marry your father. You are my
 
 184 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 wife. You can accompany me, if you wish, of 
 course." 
 
 " I shall sail," he added, " the seventh of 
 October." 
 
 He was as white, by then, as the wedding- 
 dress of Banny Doodle, whom Marion had 
 dragged contemptuously by one leg, and flung 
 head downward in her father's arms. I stood 
 staring at those two spots of whiteness the 
 doll's dress and the man's face. Everything else 
 in the room had turned black. I could not 
 even see my child. But I heard her rippling : 
 
 " Pity Popper ! " 
 
 I think she asked him to kiss her. And I 
 think he did.
 
 October the twenty-first. 
 
 THE great crises of life are not, I think, 
 necessarily those which are in themselves 
 the hardest to bear, but those for which we are 
 least prepared. My present fate has the distinc- 
 tion of possessing both these features. Like 
 many forms of distinction, it is more uncom- 
 fortable than enviable. 
 
 I suppose one ought to be glad if one is capa- 
 ble of the sardonic. Perhaps it is a healthy 
 sign. Probably that class of people who pass 
 their lives in a chronic fear of being or of being 
 thought " morbid " would call it so. On the 
 
 D 
 
 contrary, I doubt if it is a sign of anything but 
 the mere struggle for human existence. I am 
 the mother of a child, and I must live. Since I 
 must live, I cannot suffer beyond a certain point. 
 I dimly perceive that if I could rise to the level 
 of something quite alien to my nature, I might 
 thrust off by sheer mechanics a measure of what I 
 endure. I wonder if this expulsive power is scorn"? 
 
 185
 
 i86 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 There should be schools of the prophets for a 
 betrothed girl or a bride. She should be taught 
 to pray : " I find myself deficient in the first trait 
 of character necessary to womanhood. Lord, 
 give me scorn." 
 
 I meant to record to-day again to what end 
 who knows? something of what has happened. 
 But I find I cannot sit up long enough. The 
 pen shakes in my hand like a halyard in a storm. 
 
 October the twenty-seventh. 
 
 I HAVE written many letters to him, but have 
 not sent one yet ; I can't do it. If I am wrong, 
 I shall be sorry and repent; so far, I do not find 
 it possible. 
 
 He sailed on the seventh of the month, as he 
 said he should. For a long time Dana has done 
 everything that, and precisely as, he purposed. I 
 cannot remember when he has yielded to an ex- 
 pressed wish of mine because I expressed it. 
 Perhaps I should have given this more weight, 
 as a sign of deviation in his feeling toward me ; 
 but in fact I have regarded it as a form of ner- 
 vousness. Yet I cannot see that he is ill, except 
 now and then, as everybody is. Indeed, much 
 of the time he has been in better health than 
 usual vigorous, animated, often excitedly so. 
 He has had many moods and phases, but in one
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 187 
 
 respect he has undergone none : his determina- 
 tion to break away from his surroundings has 
 been sustained till it became inflexible. A con- 
 sulship is only the mold into which his will has 
 hardened. It happened to be Montevideo. It 
 might have been Venice or Constantinople, 
 the Philippines or Hawaii. He cabled, as he 
 had arranged, and said that he was safe and 
 well. 
 
 What took place between him and Father I 
 never knew, and probably I never shall. The 
 inevitable interview occurred the next day after 
 he hurled the news at me, for it could not be 
 said that he broke it. He came from the other 
 house with face like clay, gray and stiff, and 
 locked his library door upon him. How he re- 
 ceived this, the first and probably the worst of 
 many strokes which he must meet, I am not likely 
 ever to be told. Men wince under another man's 
 rebuke, I observe, when a woman may pour her 
 heart at their feet to no visible impression. Father 
 is as dumb as he in the marble group of the 
 Laocoon. He has aged ten years since Dana 
 went, and weakens visibly every day. We have 
 scarcely dared to talk about it, either he or I. 
 He sent for me once, and I went over, and knelt 
 beside his chair, and laid my head in his lap, 
 and said :
 
 i88 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Never mind, Father ! " 
 
 He put his hands upon my hair, and seemed 
 to grope for me ; and then he began to sob 
 my father ! I have never heard that sound be- 
 fore, since my mother died. I think he said : 
 " Daughter Marna ! My poor daughter ! " But 
 his words were broken. When I had com- 
 forted him a little, and kissed his wet face, and 
 laid my cheek upon his gray hair, and blessed 
 him, and calmed him, he struggled to his feet, 
 and held me at arm's-length, and read my face 
 with the look which used to be called "the 
 governor's eye" when he was in his prime. 
 
 " You shall not stay on my account," he 
 said with the governor's voice. " You shall ac- 
 company your husband. I will not come be- 
 tween you. Ellen can take care of me; and I 
 have been thinking perhaps some of the cousins 
 would consent to live here and look after me a 
 little. I should not need it very long. A wife's 
 place is beside her husband. I will not consent 
 to come between you and yours." 
 
 I know that my eyes fell before my father's. 
 I think I thrust out my hands to ask him to 
 spare me. But all I could say was : 
 
 " Don't, Father ! don't ! " 
 
 I tried to tell him that it was not he who 
 came between me and my husband; but I
 
 " ' MV POOR DAUGHTER ! ' "
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 189 
 
 think he understood without the telling, for he 
 did spare me. 
 
 " I am not going to Montevideo," I said. 
 " There is nothing to be done, Father. I have 
 decided. I shall not accompany my husband 
 not now." 
 
 Monday evening. 
 
 LIKE a hurricane, gust upon gust whirling, the 
 days that were left drove by. Dana became 
 suddenly quiet and strange, almost gentle. I 
 helped him in all the ways I could think of 
 about his packing, and little things. I sewed a 
 good deal, and mended all his clothes myself, 
 not letting Luella touch anything. And I asked 
 Robert Hazelton to put up a case of medicines 
 for him for sudden illness, and tucked it in be- 
 tween his golf-suits and his old blue velveteen 
 coat the coat I used to kiss. Robert hesitated, 
 I thought, about the medicines. His face was 
 set and stern. But he gave them to me. We 
 did not talk about my husband's going to Uru- 
 guay ; and I am sure that he had already heard 
 of it. 
 
 Oh, I did my best ! It was a miserable best, 
 for I do not think I am a brave woman, and 
 sometimes I crumbled to ashes. Then I would 
 go away alone, for a while, to regain myself, or 
 busy myself with some order anything that I
 
 190 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 could think of that would give Dana any ease 
 or comfort. I got everything that he liked for 
 dinner, all his favorite soups and meats, and the 
 pistachio cream and sponge-cake. I find myself 
 wondering if he would not have liked escalloped 
 potatoes better than souffle. And I would have 
 given five years of my life if the fire had not 
 smoked in the dining-room, and annoyed him so, 
 that last day but one. 
 
 The last day the last day ! If I write about 
 it, should I stand a chance of forgetting it for, 
 let us say, the span of one omitted pang ? Some- 
 times it works that way. I slept a little toward 
 four o'clock, between then and six. The banshee 
 moaned so that I had to stifle her with a hand- 
 kerchief. Once, in the night, I am sure his 
 door opened, and once again I thought it did. 
 And once I am sure that I heard him weeping. 
 
 I did not cry not then. I only lay staring 
 and still. That sea-song which he read to me in 
 the Dowe Cottage before we were married kept 
 coming into my head: 
 
 The stars swing like lamps in the Judgment Hall 
 On the eve of the Day of the Last Awaking. 
 
 I got up at six, and took care of Marion, and 
 put on my old ruby gown. I had made up my 
 mind not to go to the train with him, and I was
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 191 
 
 glad I had, for when he saw me, the first thing 
 he said was, " So you are not going to see me 
 off^ " with unmistakable relief. I think he was 
 afraid there would be a scene in the station, or 
 perhaps he really felt as if he could not bear it, 
 himself. It would be something if I could be- 
 lieve that. 
 
 There was, in fact, nothing left to say or do, 
 by that time. He had arranged with Father 
 about all sorts of business concerns, and taught 
 me how to use my check-book (I never had one 
 before), and he had done all the proper things. 
 You might have thought he was only running 
 over to London and back for three or four 
 weeks. 
 
 " I will find some kind of home for you when 
 I can look about," he said several times. To 
 this I made no reply. 
 
 " I will let you know at once, as soon as I 
 come across anything," he repeated. But I felt 
 that there was nothing to be said. 
 
 " You don't seem particularly anxious to join 
 me," he complained. " Of course I don't wish 
 to make myself disagreeable about it. I will 
 write often," he added, "and shall cable as soon 
 as I arrive." 
 
 When I asked (still not replying), "Have 
 you packed your thick silk flannels'?" he flushed.
 
 192 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 "Other husbands do such things," he urged. 
 "Other wives accept and accommodate them- 
 selves; they do not claim a martyr's crown for 
 the ordinary episodes of political life. You will 
 get along, I am sure. You are very clever; I 
 never knew you fail to do anything that you 
 tried to do; and your father will relieve you of 
 all business cares. You will do nicely until we 
 can be together again " 
 
 " Do you want a photograph of the baby to 
 take with you '? " I interrupted. I folded one in 
 an envelope, and handed it to him, writing on it 
 her name and age. Nothing was said about a 
 picture of myself; nor did I speak of our being 
 together again; I could as well have said it in 
 the throat of the grave. I watched him strapping 
 his trunks as if I were watching the earth being 
 shoveled between us. 
 
 Marion ran up and sat on the steamer-trunk, 
 and commanded him, stamping her little foot: 
 "Pity Popper take Baby widing! Take Dombey ! 
 Take Baby! " 
 
 While we were packing his valise, a hand- 
 organ came up Father's avenue, and began to 
 play negro melodies. There was a woman with 
 the man, and she sang shrilly, to a tambourine : 
 
 Keep me from sinking down!
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 193 
 
 It was a bright day, and the maples on the 
 avenues were of the topaz color, and had the 
 topaz fire ; they met against the sky like the 
 arch of joy in some strange world where people 
 were happy. But the woodbine on the tree- 
 house, the one we planted the fall we were 
 married, was ruby-red. 
 
 At the last, some power not myself compelled 
 me, and I ran out and picked a leaf of the red 
 woodbine from the tree-house, and looked for a 
 photograph to pin it on, but could not find any. 
 It seems he had taken one, after all. And so I 
 put the leaf into his dressing-case; but first I 
 kissed it. He did not know. 
 
 When he had said good-by to Father and to 
 the servants, he kissed the baby, and put her 
 down, and looked about for me. I was up-stairs, 
 for all I could think was to get away, not to be 
 seen by anybody; and he followed me. I thought 
 he would. He came into our own rooms, and 
 shut the door. I think he held out his arms, I 
 think he spoke my name several times, but in 
 very truth I do not know. I only know that 
 the fountains of the great deep stirred and rose 
 upon me. A woman's poise, self-control, self- 
 respect, purpose, pride, resolve these are grand 
 sounds, great words : a woman's breaking heart 
 defies them all.
 
 194 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I think when he tried to kiss me that I hid 
 my face, and slid from his lips to his breast, and 
 down, with my arms around him, till I clasped 
 his knees, and so sinking, I fell and reached his 
 feet. And then I called upon him, and cried out 
 to him God knows what such cries as heart- 
 break utters and the whole-hearted cannot under- 
 stand. I suppose I begged him not to go. I 
 suppose I prayed him for love's sake, for mine, 
 for the child's, and, above all and everything, for 
 his own. I suppose I spent myself in a passion 
 of entreaty which I cannot remember, and he will 
 not forget, I, Marna, his wife, wetting his 
 feet with my tears. I have moments of wonder- 
 ing why I am not ashamed of it. I think of it 
 stupidly, without emotion, as something which 
 had to be the inevitable, the revenge of nature 
 upon herself. It was as if I watched the scene 
 upon some strange stage, and criticized some 
 woman, not myself, for an excessive part she 
 played. 
 
 Last night I dreamed it all over, as if it were 
 a play, and I sat in the audience, and Dana and 
 I were on the stage. But when I looked about 
 me, I found that the audience was serried with 
 women, thousands upon thousands that all 
 Womanhood had thronged to the drama, and sat 
 weeping; and suddenly I saw that the house rose
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 195 
 
 upon me, because I alone did not weep, but 
 criticized the woman on the stage. 
 
 "She is nature!" they cried. "She is ours, 
 and of us, forever." 
 
 But I looked into my husband's face, and I 
 saw him debonair and smiling, and I cried out 
 upon the women : 
 
 " Then is nature set against nature, and woman- 
 hood and manhood are at civil war." 
 
 So I woke, and the door into Dana's room 
 was open, and I remembered what had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 A SHORT letter has come from him ; it said that 
 he was comfortable, and would give details by 
 the next mail, and sent his love to Marion. 
 
 November the eighth. 
 
 I WILL not be ill, and I cannot be well, and 
 therefore am I racked. Dr. Hazelton wishes me 
 to suffer him to offer some professional service; 
 I think he said there might be consequences 
 which I did not foresee if I received no care. I 
 shook my head, and he turned away; and then I 
 called him back and thanked him, and shook my 
 head again. 
 
 What could he do"? I am broken on this 
 wheel.
 
 196 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 SENT 
 
 "November the tenth. 
 
 " MY DEAR HUSBAND : I have your letters and 
 your cable, and thank you for them. I have not 
 written, partly because I have not been very 
 well ; but I am not at all ill. When you write 
 more particularly, I shall know better what to 
 say. So far, I feel as if I were writing into the 
 air. I shall become accustomed, no doubt, to 
 the new conditions, and adjust myself to them. 
 Marion is well, except for one of her throats. 
 She talks a good deal about Pity Popper. Father 
 remains about the same, and there is no news 
 except domestic items, which would not interest, 
 and might annoy, you. 
 
 "I am, faithfully, 
 
 ' " MARNA, your Wife." 
 
 UNSENT 
 
 Undated. 
 
 " DEAR DARLING : I write you a thousand let- 
 ters in my heart, and I fold them there, and seal 
 them with my kisses, and blur them with my 
 tears, till the words lean one upon another, and 
 cling to each other so that they are illegible for 
 very clinging, as lovers are lost in oneness for 
 very loving. 
 
 " I am trying to bear it, since you have willed
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 197 
 
 it oh, believe I try ! I keep hard at work, and 
 am busy with Marion, and I am a good deal 
 with Father, for I will not wade into my misery. 
 If I do, I shall be swept away. There is terrible 
 undertow in a woman's nature it would hurl 
 me into an abyss. I wish I had been a different 
 woman for your sake, Dana not to mind things 
 so, and not to grieve. I think if I had been of 
 another fiber, coarser-grained, if I had not cared 
 when you were not tender, or when I was alone 
 so much, if I had been ruder of nerve or tissue 
 do you suppose you would have liked me better *? 
 I spend my nights thinking how I could have 
 been a better wife to you. I can see so many 
 mistakes I have made, so many ways in which I 
 could have done differently and pleased you 
 better. I dream a good deal about it, and always 
 that you have come back, and that we are happy 
 again, and that you love me, and are glad to be 
 near me, as you used to be. But I do not ask 
 you to come back. Act your own nature. Have 
 your will. If it kills me, remember that I tried 
 to bear it. Though it slay me, I will not pursue 
 you with my love my bruised and broken love. 
 " Did you know you left your blue velveteen 
 coat, after all *? I found it on the floor, and hung 
 it up in your closet. I was rather glad you did 
 leave it, for it comforts me a little. I kiss it
 
 198 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 every morning and every night a good many 
 times at night. It is fortunate that it is an old 
 coat, for the shoulders and sleeves get pretty wet. 
 
 " Your desolate 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 December the tenth. 
 
 DR. ROBERT allows me to go down to dinner to- 
 day, the first time for some weeks. I think I 
 must have been pretty sick, yet I cannot see that 
 anything in particular has been the matter ; every- 
 thing is in good condition, unless there has been 
 a little feebleness of the heart's action ; but there 
 is no real disorder, Dr. Curtis says. He has been 
 in a few times to see me, but left the case, as he 
 leaves most of his cases now, to Dr. Hazelton. 
 Possibly there has been some congestion in the 
 brain, hardly enough to call a fever and, really, 
 I don't care enough what ails me to insist on 
 knowing, unless I am told. Neither of them has 
 shown any uncontrollable desire to tell me what 
 has been the matter. 
 
 One night when I was lying in a sort of stupor, 
 seeing strange things and thinking stranger, and 
 not supposed, I am sure, to be capable of hear- 
 ing any, I must have absorbed fragments of con- 
 versation between the old doctor and the young. 
 
 "Have you thought of trephining?" asked
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 199 
 
 Dr. Curtis, with a doubt and a dogma warring in 
 his voice. " If there should be anything in the 
 nature of a concealed inflammation " 
 
 " Would you operate for heartbreak *? " de- 
 manded Robert, fiercely. " There is absolutely 
 nothing else." 
 
 " Damn him ! " cried our old doctor. 
 
 Dr. Robert did not answer. He got up and 
 went to the window, and stood with his back to 
 Dr. Curtis; a short, strong figure, as stern as 
 granite, he trembled like the river of light which 
 broke through the closed blinds against which he 
 stood. I saw the sun-motes whirling about his 
 head and shoulders at the moment when I 
 recognized him in that flaming stream. 
 
 Now that I am better, and look back upon it 
 all, I can see that it must have been Dr. Robert's 
 face which I saw so often when I was the sick- 
 est a calm, protecting presence, tireless and 
 strong. I scarcely remember seeing Fanny at 
 all. I could have blessed Robert, but I do not 
 think I did. I dreamed so much of Dana, and 
 had such visions, all the while. I thought I 
 should die, and Dana so many thousand miles 
 away. Nothing was of any consequence but 
 Dana. 
 
 I wonder if I talked about my husband? 
 Much*? I dare not ask; and Robert would
 
 200 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 cheerfully be put to the second question, but he 
 would not tell. I am glad that the doctor is not 
 a stranger, if there must be a doctor at all. I 
 suppose, really, he has been very kind to me. I 
 must remember to thank him. 
 
 To-day I found some of my letters to Dana 
 put away carefully in a drawer in his desk, but 
 not locked. I have taken out a few, and put 
 them into the Accepted Manuscript: they will 
 be safer there. 
 
 December the eleventh. 
 
 IT occurred to me to ask the doctor if anybody 
 had told Dana that I had been ill. 
 
 " Your father," he said, " and I." 
 
 " You did not cable for him ? " I fired. I felt 
 the color slap my cheeks. Dr. Robert made no 
 reply. " I will never forgive you," I cried, " if 
 you asked him to come home for this!" 
 
 " The danger was not so imminent as to 
 make it really necessary," he answered quickly. 
 Afterward this reply struck me as less candid 
 than it might have been ; but I did not pursue 
 the subject, for I saw that I had pained the 
 doctor. 
 
 To-day my husband's letters came two or 
 three of them, blockaded in the mails. They 
 express the proper amount of concern for my 
 "indisposition," that was the word, and re-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 201 
 
 quest to be promptly informed of any change 
 for better or for worse. 
 
 What is it about that phrase ? Oh, I remem- 
 ber. It was for better and for worse that we 
 gave ourselves to each other. 
 
 Wonderful, those ancient oaths, sanctified by 
 centuries of bridals ! One must reverence lan- 
 guage drawn out of the live, beating human 
 heart an artery of love through which a mighty 
 experience has poured. 
 
 "In sickness and in health"? "Till death 
 us do part'"? Who knows but the time will 
 come when the marriage service shall be thus 
 amended ? 
 
 " Till sickness us do disenchant." " Till dis- 
 tance us do part." 
 
 Fanny Freer took her heart in her mouth to- 
 day, and warned me in so many words that I 
 was becoming vitriolic. 
 
 " It is quite unnecessary," she said. Fanny has 
 taken care of me since I have been ill ; I have 
 named her Mercibel Angel of Sickness, Beau- 
 tiful Mercy. When her dimple dips into her 
 bow-and-arrow mouth she is irresistible. How 
 divine is the tenderness of a woman ! It has 
 ineffable delicacy, the refinement of a self-abne- 
 gating nature, a something passing the affection 
 of man. A woman hungers and thirsts for the
 
 202 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 compassion of her own kind. I lean to Merci- 
 bel ; " for my race is of the Asra." 
 Men have little tenderness, I think. 
 
 I HAD written so far when the doctor called. I 
 must say Robert is very kind to me. There is a 
 certain quality in his manner which I do not 
 know how to define ; an instinctive or an ac- 
 quired forgetfulness of himself, a way of think- 
 ing no suffering too small if he can relieve it, no 
 relief too insignificant if he can offer it. I am 
 told that his patients love him devotedly, and 
 that he sacrifices himself for poor and obscure 
 persons to an unfashionable extent, so that Dr. 
 Curtis and the older men feel quite concerned 
 about him. 
 
 " Are there not hospitals and dispensaries *? " 
 they say. I believe they are plotting to tie him 
 to a hospital of his own. Many people lean on 
 him; they "clamor" for him, Mercibel says, 
 and she has worked for him a good deal ; I sup- 
 pose she knows. One need not clamor, and 
 one may not lean, but I do feel grateful to Rob- 
 ert. Now that I am getting better, Marion is 
 ailing; the doctor thinks this delicacy of her 
 throat needs careful attention, and I am sure 
 he gives it. Dr. Curtis tells me to trust her 
 entirely to Dr. Hazelton, and that he has not
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 203 
 
 his superior among the young physicians of the 
 State. 
 
 It is difficult to believe that Robert was ever a 
 lover and suitor of mine. I have quite forgotten 
 it, and I am sure he has. I wish he would marry 
 Minnie Curtis. 
 
 I wonder if Dana has written to Minnie 1 ? 
 She does not mention it. I think she would if he 
 had. I have written to Dana to-day. The doc- 
 tor offered to mail it for me direct from the post- 
 office on his way down-town, that it might catch 
 the outgoing steamer. I wish I did not find it 
 so hard to write naturally to my husband ; but I 
 think that my embarrassment grows worse and 
 worse. I feel so bruised all the time ; it is as if 
 he had beaten me my soul is black. And he 
 never raised his hand against me in my life. 
 Mercibel tells me that husbands sometimes do 
 such things. And he was often very angry with 
 me God knows why. 
 
 I am glad he never did that. I should have 
 taken the baby and gone out of the house for- 
 ever. I can't say that I should not have wished 
 I had n't, but I should have gone ; I am quite 
 sure of that, for I am so constituted. I am 
 called a tender woman ; but there is a shield of 
 implacability in me, steel, deep down beneath my 
 satin. If there were not, I think I should be dead.
 
 204 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 One day the doctor said to me in quite a 
 casual way : 
 
 " Did you have occasion to notice any marked 
 nervous irritability in Mr. Herwin before he 
 went to Uruguay say the last six months ? " 
 
 " Why do you ask ? " I suggested. 
 
 " I am answered," said Robert. He bent over 
 the powders which he was folding collectedly; 
 his profile was as impersonal as a symbolic 
 medallion. 
 
 " You will take these," he said, " one dry on 
 the tongue every night. You will give Marion 
 the others, in six tablespoonfuls of water, one 
 teaspoonful every two hours." 
 
 He rose, snapping the elastic on his medicine- 
 case, and his lips parted. I saw that he would 
 have spoken. In fact, he left without another 
 word. 
 
 December the twentieth. 
 TO-DAY the doctor said abruptly : 
 
 " Write to your husband often ; and par- 
 don me write as kindly as you can." 
 
 I sat staring. Robert has never spoken so to 
 me before. I was inclined to resent his words ; 
 but it would have been impossible to resent 
 his manner. This is something so fine and com- 
 passionate that I do not know how to qualify it. 
 Mercibel calls it his oxygen. " That is what
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 205 
 
 they clamor for," she says, " an invigoration that 
 can be breathed. Every patient feels the same 
 about him." 
 
 I wonder if Fanny wanted me to understand 
 that the doctor had no particular manner reserved 
 for myself? She need not have undergone any 
 anxieties. She does not know that Robert and I 
 meet like two spirits, having left all personal re- 
 lations far behind us in an old, forgotten world. 
 
 SENT 
 
 " January the third. 
 
 " MY DEAR HUSBAND : I have not been quite 
 strong enough to write you any details before 
 now, and I knew that Dr. Hazelton had cabled 
 you, though I did not know it until several days 
 afterward. I shall hear from you soon, no 
 doubt. 
 
 " I had been over to see Father rather late that 
 evening, and had carried him our little presents, 
 Marion's and mine, and he kissed me good night 
 three times, and blessed me, and said : 
 
 " ' Daughter, you have never given me one 
 hour's anxiety; you have been nothing but a 
 comfort to me from the first moment that they 
 laid you in my arms.' 
 
 " In the morning, in the Christmas morning, 
 while it was quite gray and early, Luella waked
 
 206 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 me, and said that the doctor was down-stairs and 
 wished to see me for a moment Even then I 
 did not understand ; I thought perhaps he was 
 called away on some long case, or out-of-town 
 consultation, and had come to leave directions 
 about Marion, for he takes such care of Marion 
 as I am sure you will be grateful to him for, 
 and I dressed and hurried down, stupidly. 
 
 " Robert was standing in the middle of the 
 library, and when I saw his face I said : 
 
 " ' Something has happened to Father ! I 
 will go right over.' 
 
 " I started, and pushed open the front door, 
 and out into the snow, for it had stormed (and 
 the banshee had cried as she does in storms) all 
 night. James had not begun to shovel the paths, 
 and it was pretty deep. But before I had waded 
 in I felt myself held strongly back by the shoul- 
 ders, and the doctor said : 
 
 " ' Do not go, Marna. There is nothing you 
 can do nor I.' 
 
 " Ellen had found him at six o'clock, ' looking 
 that happy,' she says. And the doctor got there 
 in a few minutes, but he is sure that nobody 
 could have saved Father. It was an embolism 
 in brain or heart, they think. 
 
 " We buried him beside Mother, on the third 
 day of Christmas week. Of course I knew you
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 207 
 
 could not get here, and I tried not to think of it. 
 He left a sealed letter for you. Shall I send it 
 on *? Or would you rather wait ? 
 
 " You will forgive a short note, for I have not 
 been quite well, and there are many cares and 
 perplexities to be met. 
 
 " Your affectionate wife, 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 UNSENT 
 
 Undated. 
 
 " MY DARLING : I know you do not realize 
 what I am undergoing, and I tell myself so every 
 moment, lest I should lose myself and think 
 hardly of you. I say : ' It was so sudden that 
 he could not come, and now that it is over, why 
 should he come ? ' It is true I long for you so 
 that it seems as if I could not live. But I do 
 not like to tell you so. I am not used to bearing 
 so much quite alone. I never had a real be- 
 reavement before I see now that I never did. 
 I think if I could creep into your arms, and hear 
 you say, ' Poor little wife ! ' that I could cry. I 
 find it impossible to cry. 
 
 " I begin to understand for the first time some- 
 thing of what people mean when they say : ' It 
 was easiest for him, but hardest for us.' All those 
 truisms of grief and consolation have never had 
 meaning for me ; in truth, I don't think I have
 
 208 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 respected them the uncandid prattle about 
 resignation, the religious phraseology made to 
 do duty for honest anguish. But now I think 
 of all the old human expedients enviously. Per- 
 haps if I had been a devout woman I might 
 know how to bear this better. Do you think I 
 should? Dana, it sometimes comes to me, on 
 long nights when I cannot sleep, to ask myself, 
 with the terrible frankness of vigil, whether, if 
 you and I had been what are called religious 
 people, we should have found marriage any less 
 a mystery for us, I mean ; any easier to adapt 
 ourselves to. There may be something in the 
 trained sense of duty, something who knows? 
 in that old idea of sacrifice, in the putting 
 aside of one's own exacting personality, in the 
 yielding of lower to higher laws. Do you sup- 
 pose that the Christian idea can come to the rescue 
 of the love idea ? I do not know. I am teach- 
 ing Marion to say her prayers. I hope you will 
 not mind? 
 
 " Dana, Dana, I love you ! Sometimes I wish 
 I did not; but I do. I cannot help it. I must 
 be honest and tell you ; sometimes I try to help 
 it. I think that I must stop loving you or die ; 
 and I grope about for something to take the 
 place of loving you, some interest that I could 
 tolerate, any diversion or occupation, some little
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 209 
 
 passing comfort, the kindness of other people to 
 
 me, something to ' keep me from sinking down.' 
 
 "Your lonely and your loving 
 
 " MARNA." 
 
 SENT 
 
 " January the fifteenth. 
 
 "Mv DEAR HUSBAND: You will be notified, 
 of course, in the proper way by Father's lawyers, 
 but I am sure you should hear it first from me. 
 The property is found to be in a strange condi- 
 tion depleted, Dr. Hazelton calls it. There 
 are some shrunken investments, and there has 
 been some mismanagement at the factories since 
 he has been obliged to delegate everything so to 
 other men, who have not proved conscientious. 
 Then there are those lawsuits about his patent 
 on the linen thread you know you used to 
 take a good deal of that off his hands ; but lately 
 I think he has been wronged somehow, and was 
 too feeble to right himself. At all events, some- 
 thing like a couple of hundred thousand is swept 
 away. And, in fact, my inheritance will prove 
 so small that I am thinking seriously of renting 
 the old place. Do you object? I have only 
 Father's friends to take counsel of, and Mr. Gray 
 advises me to do this, decidedly. 
 
 " Please reply by next steamer. 
 
 " Your affectionate WIFE."
 
 210 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 CABLE MESSAGE 
 
 " January 20. 
 
 " Herwin, United States Consulate, 
 " Montevideo, Uruguay. 
 
 " Drs. Curtis and Hazelton wish Father's 
 house sanatorium. Twenty years' lease. Cable 
 reply. 
 
 " MARNA." 
 SENT 
 
 " January the twenty-fifth. 
 
 " MY DEAR DANA : Your cable came after a 
 little delay. I suppose you may have been out 
 of town 1 ? We do not altogether understand it, 
 but I fancy that happens with the cable. It 
 seems clear, however, that you interpose no ob- 
 jections, and, not knowing anything better to 
 do, I have closed with the sanatorium offer for 
 the old place. I think I would gladly be in Uru- 
 guay if I need not see my decision carried into 
 effect. I have put the whole affair into Mr. Mel- 
 lenway's hands, so that there shall be no blunder. 
 
 " It seems this sanatorium idea has long been 
 a fad of Dr. Curtis's and a dream of Robert's ; 
 and the other day that rich old man Pendleton, 
 whom Robert has kept alive for years, surren- 
 dered his ghost and his will. Everything goes 
 absolutely to Robert to support a private hos- 
 pital after his own unrestricted pleasure. Robert
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 211 
 
 says it is such an opportunity as some men in 
 his profession would give their lives for. Dr. 
 Curtis is to be the figurehead, but Dr. Hazel- 
 ton will be in virtual control, being resident 
 superintendent, but with a staff of subordinates 
 which will permit him to retain portions of his 
 private practice. Otherwise, Fanny says, his 
 clientele would rise and mob him. If I must see 
 anybody in the old house, I would rather it were 
 friends than strangers. I am trying to mold my 
 mind to it without grumbling. I think there is 
 this about the great troubles they teach us the 
 art of cheerfulness; whereas the small ones culti- 
 vate the industry of discontent. I hope you will 
 be pleased with what I have done. You see, 
 Dana, that what I have of Mother's has dwindled 
 with the rest, and, I suppose, for the same reason. 
 I hated to have to tell you, but really, Dear, I 
 don't see just how we could get along if I did 
 not rent the place. 
 
 " Thank you for your last letter. If they were a 
 little longer sometimes, I could feel that I could 
 form a better idea of your life. You seem as 
 far from 'me as if you swung in a purple star 
 upon a frosty night at the end of dark miles 
 measured by billions in mid-space. But I am 
 " Loyally your wife, 
 
 " MARNA.
 
 212 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " P.S. Marion is becoming dangerously pretty, 
 and your eyes grow older in her every day. She 
 sends her love to Pity Popper, and commands 
 that you kiss Dombey, distinctly omitting Banny 
 Doodle, who is, at this writing, head down in 
 the umbrella-rack, by way of punishment for 
 invisible offenses. Last Monday Banny Doodle 
 was saved by old Ellen, at the brink of fate, from 
 being scornfully run through the clothes-wringer. 
 
 " Ellen has asked my permission to spend the 
 winter with me, refusing any wages. Thank 
 you for the last draft. I shall use it as wisely as 
 I can, and I am learning to live economically, 
 because I must. We have given up the tele- 
 phone." 
 
 May the twenty-fifth. 
 
 IT is one of the days that make one believe that 
 everything is coming out right in some world, 
 and might do so in this one if the weather would 
 last. Showers of sunshine drench the brightest 
 grass, the mistiest leaf, I think I ever saw. The 
 apple-tree is snowing pearl and coral upon the 
 tree-house. (If Dana could see it, I should be 
 quite happy.) The world is one bud, blossom- 
 ing to a faithful sky. 
 
 Marion is out six hours of every blue-and-gold 
 day with Job and Ellen, who, between them, 
 spoil the child artistically. After her hard win-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 213 
 
 ter, the baby herself seems but a May-flower, a 
 pink, sweet May-flower, opening in a shady 
 place. If it had not been for the doctor well, 
 if it had not been for the doctor, I cannot think 
 what would have happened, or what would yet 
 happen. I cannot, now, imagine myself without 
 him. He who saves her child's life recreates a 
 mother. 
 
 The old home and the new sanatorium are 
 wedded more comfortably than I should have 
 thought possible ; and I have outgrown the first 
 pangs of jealousy. They call it the Pendleton, 
 as if it were an apartment-house. The patients 
 are not so many yet, of course, as to be disturb- 
 ing, and the whole thing moves on rubber-tired 
 wheels. Mercibel has a permanent position 
 there. 
 
 It is said that all sanatoriums, or such insti- 
 tutions, are replicas of their superintendents. 
 About this one there is a certain gentle cheerful- 
 ness, a subtle invigoration, which is Dr. Robert 
 all over again. He is the soul of his hospital. 
 
 I have noticed that the preoccupations of very 
 busy men do service as apologies for neglect of 
 friendly claims to an extent which is deified in 
 the spirit of our day, like a scientific error, or any 
 other false cult. I, who have no claim upon 
 this overworked man, either of his seeking, or
 
 214 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 of my wishing, or of the world's providing, am 
 touched by a thoughtfulness which I have no 
 right to exact and no reason to expect. When 
 I think of the intricacies which have resulted in 
 the simple circumstance that my father's house 
 has become a private hospital, I must feel that 
 the hand of mercy has remembered me. 
 
 Once when Father was calling on Whittier at 
 Amesbury, Mr. Whittier said : " I wish I had 
 thee for a neighbor." I have often wished I had 
 a neighbor, a soul-neighbor who was a house- 
 neighbor. I never had before. 
 
 All this cruel winter my old friend has be- 
 friended and defended me from every harm 
 between which and myself he could, by any in- 
 genuity of the heart, interpose his indefatigable 
 tenderness. 
 
 I choose the word, but I do not give it the 
 lower translations. He has taught me what few 
 women learn, what fewer men can teach, that 
 there is such a thing as trustworthy tenderness. 
 I might almost call it impersonal tenderness. 
 Language does not betray it; expression does 
 not weaken it. It is as firm as the protection of 
 a spirit, and as safe. Swept into the desert of 
 desolation as I am, something upholds me, that 
 I do not perish. Is it mirage, or is it miracle *? 
 There is a marvel which many women dream of
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 215 
 
 but do not overtake the friendly kindness 
 of a strong, good man. 
 
 May the twenty-seventh. 
 
 No letter has come yet from Dana. It is now 
 three weeks since I have heard. Once, in the 
 winter, it was four. 
 
 " I would keep on writing," the doctor says. 
 How did he know that I had not 1 ? Sometimes 
 it seems to me as if I could drop into the un- 
 fathomable silences, and at other times as if I 
 must. Dana's letters are no more natural, I per- 
 ceive, than mine. Some of them are curiously 
 involved and elaborate, and others are one dash 
 of the pen, like a tongue of fire that may reach 
 anything or nothing. 
 
 He writes so frostily in one letter that my 
 heart freezes ; and in the next I find a kind of 
 piteous afTectionateness before which I melt and 
 weep. 
 
 He has ceased to speak of making a home for 
 me in Montevideo. At first he wrote about 
 hotels and the discomforts of housekeeping 
 about the spiders and lizards. After that he said 
 that the climate would not do for Marion, and 
 that there was no doctor in the whole blanked 
 country to whom I would be willing to trust the 
 child. There is a certain something in his let-
 
 ters which perplexes me. I showed one of them 
 in April to Robert. 
 
 " Do not resent this," he said. " Be patient ; 
 be gentle." 
 
 He walked across the room, and returned. 
 
 " As if," he added, " you were ever anything 
 else ! " I could have thought that his grieving 
 lip was tremulous. He has a delicate mouth; 
 but it is stronger than most delicate things, and 
 never betrays him. 
 
 Did I once think him a plain person? At 
 times his strong, unostentatious face assumes 
 transfigurations. There have been moments in 
 my desperate and desolate life this year when 
 he has looked to me like one of the sons of 
 God. 
 
 How manifold may be the simplest, sanest feel- 
 ing ! I cherish in my soul two gratitudes that 
 of the patient, and that of the mother to this 
 kind, wise man. I might add a third : the 
 thankfulness of an old friend for a new loyalty. 
 To-day the doctor said to me, quite incidentally : 
 " The next time you write to Mr. Herwin, pray 
 tell him that I suggested that he should hunt up 
 that medicine-case, and take atropine 3 X twice 
 daily." 
 
 " What for ? Malaria ? " I asked.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 217 
 
 " I think you said he complained of malaria," 
 replied Dr. Hazelton. 
 
 June the first. 
 
 MARION had one of her feverish turns last night, 
 and Ellen went for the doctor. It was a warm, 
 soft night, and we had only candle-light in the 
 room. I use Robert's candlestick a good deal 
 for sickness; it holds an English candle that 
 burns all night. 
 
 When he had stirred Marion's medicine, and 
 covered the tumbler in his conscientious way, he 
 nodded at the gold candlestick. 
 
 " You keep it well polished," he said, smiling. 
 
 " It has proved a faithful compass," I answered, 
 smiling too. " I believe they don't always, do 
 they ? I heard the other day of a wreck on the 
 coast of Norway which was caused by the de- 
 flection of the needle." 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, " I read that. It was 
 attributed to a magnetic rock. There really are 
 such, I think, though they are rare." He began 
 to talk about the coast of Norway with more in- 
 terest, I thought, than the subject called for. It 
 was as if he deflected my mind from the compass. 
 I felt a trifle hurt, and a certain pugnacity into 
 which I lapse now and then (and for which I 
 am generally sorry) befell me. I took the com- 
 pass up and shook it. The candle flared out.
 
 218 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I lighted it again as quickly as I could, for the 
 baby complained that I had " grown it dark" 
 and she could not see " her doctor." He 
 watched the needle mounting steadily. 
 
 " See ! " I cried, " the candle went out. But 
 the compass holds true. The needle points due 
 north, Doctor." 
 
 "And always will," he answered solemnly. In 
 the vague light, and moving away from me as he 
 was, for he had risen abruptly to end his call, 
 his strong features were molded by massive 
 shadows. Even in stature he seemed to change 
 before my eyes, and to grow tall, as figures do 
 that one sees in a fog. 
 
 June the fifteenth. 
 
 DANA'S letter has come at last. It is a very 
 strange letter. He offers no explanation of his 
 silence, no apology for the neglect. He writes 
 with a certain vagueness which is almost too im- 
 palpable to be called cold, and yet which chills 
 me to the soul, like a mist when the sun is down. 
 He sends his love to Marion, and I am to re- 
 member him to the doctor. He is glad I am in 
 such good medical hands. He mentions again 
 that there is not a decent doctor in that country, 
 and adds that he does not think the climate 
 agrees with him, that he was fooled on the cli-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 219 
 
 mate, and that the whole blanked nation is a 
 malaria microbe. He incloses a draft (a small 
 one), and inquires whether I had not better have 
 the telephone put in again ; in fact, he makes a 
 particular request of it. I wonder why his mind 
 should fasten on this, the only detail about my 
 life which has seemed, for some time, to take a 
 very distinct form to his imagination, or even to 
 his recollection. 
 
 I handed the letter to the doctor. Although I 
 hesitated about troubling him, I did not hesitate 
 about the letter. There is seldom anything now 
 in my husband's letters which I could not show 
 to another person, unless, indeed, I should not 
 for the very reason that I could. Now and then 
 some sharp word or phrase pierces the soft, elabo- 
 rate surface, some expression like a stone, or 
 a tool, which did not take the frost-work, or 
 from which a clouded sun has melted it, but 
 for the most part Dana has ceased to be cross to 
 me. Sometimes I wish he were. I read a story 
 once of a poor woman who fled and hid herself 
 from her husband (but he was one of the brutes), 
 and, being illuminated by repentance, he sought 
 and found her. His first expression of endear- 
 ment was a volley of oaths. " The familiar pro- 
 fanity," so ran the tale, " reassured the wife. She 
 nestled to him in ecstasy."
 
 220 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 There is something in Dana's excessive and 
 courteous good nature which troubles me. 
 
 Dr. Robert read this letter slowly. I had the 
 ill manners to watch his face boldly while he 
 
 4 
 
 did so. It was inscrutable. He folded the 
 letter and handed it back without a word. 
 
 To-day Mercibel brought me this note from 
 him the first that Robert has written me since 
 those old days in the other world where I was 
 dear to him. It is a comfort to know that I am 
 so no longer, and I am sure he has forgotten that 
 I ever was. I am quite ashamed of myself that 
 I recall it. Women have relentless memories 
 about the men who have once loved and honored 
 them ; I think they cherish these tender ghosts 
 of experience after a man himself has virtually 
 forgotten them. 
 
 I fasten in the doctor's note : 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. HERWIN : I have given the 
 matter some thought, and I suggest that you 
 have your telephone reconnected, as your hus- 
 band seems to wish it. I do not know that my 
 reasons for the advice are so definite to myself 
 that I can very well make them clear to you : 
 but, in fact, I urge it. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 " ROBERT HAZELTON.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 221 
 
 "Later. 
 
 " P.S. I am called out of town on a distant 
 consultation, and expect you and Marion will 
 both keep quite well till I return. I shall be 
 gone till day after to-morrow. In case of any 
 sudden need, my first assistant, Dr. Packard, will 
 do excellently, if Dr. Curtis should not be able 
 to come to you. Dr. Packard has access to my 
 case-books and Marion's remedies. 
 
 " I have taken the liberty of asking the tele- 
 phone people to call and receive your orders 
 this afternoon. It may save you some trouble." 
 
 I am ashamed to say that my discreditable 
 impulse was to refuse to see the telephone man- 
 ager when he came ; for once I was a girl of 
 what is called spirit, and certainly Robert has 
 taken upon himself 
 
 What ? What can the doctor take upon him- 
 self but a thankless and uneased burden, a 
 neglected woman and her ailing child *? What 
 can he take upon himself but sacrifices without 
 hopes, duty without comfort ? What shall I take 
 upon myself but the ashes of repentance? I am 
 not worthy of such high comradeship. 
 
 I have ordered the telephone put in again. 
 
 " MY DEAR DOCTOR : I send this to let you 
 know at once on your return that I have obeyed
 
 222 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 you. The wire will be reconnected by Sunday, 
 and I shall send my first message by way of that 
 old and reestablished friend if I may 1 ? to 
 yourself. 
 
 " I do not find it easy to express my sense of 
 obligation to you, but I find it harder not to do so. 
 
 " I have been everything that is burdensome 
 and trying, and you have been everything that 
 is kind and wise and strong. I have been all 
 care and no comfort ; believe that I understand 
 that, even though I do not seem to. You are 
 always nobly giving, and I am always pitiably 
 receiving, some unselfish, friendly service. Some- 
 times I feel ashamed to allow you to be so con- 
 siderate of my child and of myself; and then I 
 am ashamed that I have been ashamed; for God 
 knows we have needed you, Marion and I. 
 What would have befallen us without you I do 
 not find myself able to imagine. I often try 
 to explain to my husband, when I write him, all 
 that you have done and been and are to us. 
 
 " Far better than I can ever do, he will ac- 
 knowledge your faithful kindness when he returns 
 to us, and to himself. Oh, Robert! do you 
 think he ever will? I am 
 
 " Your grateful patient and 
 your sincere friend, 
 
 "MARNA HERWIN."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 223 
 
 July the fifth. 
 
 YESTERDAY I was really ill. I think it was the 
 terrible weather (of course I miss the sea), and 
 something that troubles me, and the loss of sleep 
 caused by the excess of patriotism on our street ; 
 in fact, this has lasted five nights, culminating 
 on the night of the third. The doctor says that 
 his patients, some of whom are of the nervous 
 species, have suffered to such an extent that he 
 is prepared to wish the American nation had re- 
 mained in a colonial condition. He divided the 
 entire night between his sick people and the 
 ruffians on the street, for the private guard that 
 he had provided proved incompetent to cope 
 with them. Once, in the night, I heard foot- 
 steps outside my cottage, and looking out, I 
 saw the doctor's patrolman softly pacing around 
 our house. Nothing has been said to me about 
 this, and I have not told him that I know it; 
 but the tears smarted to my eyes that little act 
 of thoughtful care was so divinely like him. 
 
 As I write, Ellen is singing to Marion in the 
 nursery : 
 
 His loving kindness, 
 Loving ki-ind-ness, 
 Lov-ing ki-i-/W-ness, oh, how great! 
 
 Every time that Ellen strikes a high note Job 
 barks. Ellen is a musical Methodist, and Job,
 
 224 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I have always maintained, is a Unitarian. I 
 think Job misses his master's singing. The 
 piano has been mute, now, nearly a year ; I have 
 never touched it since he left. Ours has become 
 the home of the unsung songs. 
 
 I am writing on in this preposterous way be- 
 cause something has happened. It would be 
 easier to record any histrionic episode, any thrill- 
 ing incident of fate or of fiction, than the intan- 
 gible circumstance which I wish to enter upon 
 this candid page. 
 
 What (I think I have said before) are the 
 plots of event before those of feeling? They 
 seem to me inartistic and dull. 
 
 I, who live more quietly than most of my 
 class and my years the secluded life of a New 
 England lady; who play only the poor role of 
 the slighted wife, not even dramatically de- 
 serted ; I, who have not the splendors of a great 
 tragedy to throw high lights upon my gray story 
 I, too, experience drama. 
 
 How shall I maintain my untaught part upon 
 this stage of the spirit ? For me it confuses 
 more than if I were a woman of the world. I 
 perceive that I am not representative of my day, 
 that, young as I am, I belong to an elder time : 
 I am an anachronism. For I am a woman of 
 the home, and the homing nature has sheltered 
 me. Mme. de Stae'l, when she was dying, said :
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 225 
 
 " I have loved God, my father, and liberty." I 
 have loved my father, my husband, and my child. 
 Now every thought is a spectator in this, to me, 
 uneducated action ; every hope, every feeling, 
 every nerve, is an actor. My nature seems to 
 be taxed with a new and imperious expression 
 of itself. Am I appointed to some solitary scene, 
 some thrilling monologue, where duty and deso- 
 lation are at war? 
 
 WHEN the doctor was called to-day, he seemed 
 distressed at finding me more ill than he had 
 supposed, though, really, I think it was what 
 many physicians would have dismissed as a ner- 
 vous attack, and disregarded. He said at once : 
 
 " Did you have a letter yesterday *? " 
 
 " I did not sleep," I answered ; " the boys in 
 the street " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. Can I see the letter *? " 
 
 " I think not this time, Doctor." 
 
 " Very well. Any news in it *? " 
 
 "None. About the same thing." 
 
 " It is not necessary for me to know details. 
 What I must know is, has there been an emotional 
 strain *? It makes a difference with the prescrip- 
 tion. Your pulse is not quite as firm as it ought 
 to be. You were grieved at something ? You 
 need give me no particulars " 
 
 He turned to prepare his powders, and neither
 
 226 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 of us spoke. Marion did the talking; she trotted 
 up to my lounge, and asked when Pity Popper 
 would come home. 
 
 " You are to sleep, no matter how much 
 trouble it takes to keep the house still," the 
 doctor said peremptorily. " I will give orders to 
 the servants myself as I go down. Ellen shall 
 take the child over to Mrs. Freer for a few hours. 
 I will ring and direct this." 
 
 He rang, and Ellen came, and Marion went. 
 The doctor went on folding powders calmly. I 
 turned my face upon the sofa-pillow, and closed 
 my eyes. I had on one of my thin white gowns, 
 and the lace at my throat stirred with my breath, 
 and tickled my cheek a little, so that it an- 
 noyed me, and I started quickly to brush it 
 away. 
 
 The suddenness of the motion took him un- 
 awares, and my eyes unexpectedly surprised his. 
 He had finished folding powders, and sat look- 
 ing at me, thinking that I would not see, be- 
 lieving that I would not know, perhaps God 
 grant it ! himself not knowing how it was with 
 him. 
 
 It all passed like a captured illusion, which 
 escaped, and refused to be overtaken. The soul 
 of the man retreated to its own place, and the 
 lens of the physician's guarded eyes passed
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 227 
 
 swiftly before his. The defense was something 
 so subtle but so instantaneous as to be superb. 
 I honored him for it from my heart. 
 
 But, ah me, ah me ! Some other man, some 
 stranger, some new friend, might perplex me, 
 but not this one. For I had seen Robert look 
 like that how long ago! when he was free 
 to love me, and I to be beloved. 
 
 July the sixth. 
 
 I SAID that something had happened. What*? 
 The lifting of an eyelash, the foray of a soul. 
 Nothing more. Yet am I hurled by the move- 
 ment of the drama. 
 
 To-day Dr. Packard came to make the pro- 
 fessional call. He reported Dr. Hazelton as 
 excessively busy, and summoned off on a con- 
 sultation by an early train. How haggard Rob- 
 ert looked that last time he was here ! He had 
 slept less than any of us. His eyes had the in- 
 somniac brilliance and the insomniac honesty. I 
 do not think I even told him that I was sorry 
 for him. The omission taunts me now that I 
 cannot see him. 
 
 SENT 
 
 *' 3 u ty ^ e seventh. 
 
 " MY DEAR HUSBAND : Your last letter hurt 
 me, but I will not dwell on that. I am sure that
 
 228 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 you must have felt truly ill to write just as you 
 did, and I am distressed and anxious. I cannot 
 think that the climate agrees with you, as you 
 say. Your intimation that you may not serve 
 out a much longer term in the consulate would 
 have given me pleasure but for you know 
 what. There seems to be always a lost bolt in 
 the machinery of human happiness. As you 
 say, the mill never turns with the water that is 
 passed. New currents sweep the whirling wheel, 
 and new forces start the life and fill the heart. 
 "Marion is well, and I am better. 
 
 " Your affectionate wife, 
 
 "MARNA HERWIN. 
 
 " P.S. No ; I do not mind that gossip about 
 you. I would not stoop. I could no more be- 
 lieve it than I would believe it of myself. Give 
 yourself no concern on that score. Whatever 
 else may happen, you are incapable of that. 
 
 " I cannot deny that it wounds me that I am 
 not in a position to defy the world and the worst 
 with my confidence in my husband my ulti- 
 mate confidence burning deep in the dimness 
 where the great elements of character are forged. 
 But of this we need not speak. Let it suffice 
 that I trust you, Dana. 
 
 "And, Dear, I have sometimes thought that was
 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 229 
 
 a wicked proverb. It may not be the same 
 water that turns the mill, but it is the same 
 stream, Dana." 
 
 July the eighth. 
 
 TO-DAY the doctor came. He has resumed him- 
 self altogether. Except for a sheen of his trans- 
 parent pallor, he was much as usual cheerful, 
 quiet, strong. He made a strictly professional 
 call, and it was brief. He regretted that he 
 did not find me better, and I protested that 
 I was quite well; and we talked of the 
 weather, and of Marion, and of the climate of 
 Uruguay, which, it seems, bears an excellent 
 reputation. 
 
 He left a new remedy, and rose to go. Swiftly 
 my common sense deserted me, and I lapsed into 
 one of the lunacies for which sick women, above 
 the remainder of our race, are, I believe, distin- 
 guished. In point of fact, I felt physically weak 
 enough to cry my soul out, and leave it for the 
 doctor to pick up and put back as if one 
 dropped a bracelet, or a flower. It seemed to 
 me a laudable evidence of self-restraint that I 
 should only say : 
 
 " Why did you send Dr. Packard ? I missed 
 you, Robert." 
 
 " Did you ? " he asked gently. He took my 
 hand with ineffable tenderness and delicacy, and
 
 230 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 then he laid it down upon the folds of my white 
 dress. 
 
 " I think you are right," he said quietly. " It 
 was not very brave. I do not mean that you 
 shall miss me too much nor " 
 
 The sentence broke. His eyes said : " Nor do 
 I mean that you shall need me too much, either." 
 But his lips said nothing at all. 
 
 UNSENT (ADDRESSED, STAMPED^ AND HELD OVER) 
 
 Undated. 
 
 * DANA ! Dana ! Come back to me ! I fling 
 my pride to the stars ; I never had any too much 
 of it, so far as you are concerned, my dear, not 
 since the day you made the Wilderness Girl 
 your prisoner, and I clasp you with my heart, 
 and cling to you. Do not stay away too long, 
 not too long ! Do not push the risks of separa- 
 tion too far, I do entreat you. .1 am a young 
 wife, Dana, not used to solitude and care, and 
 I never was neglected in my life before and 
 you know I don't bear loneliness as well as some 
 women do. I thought I was a constant woman, 
 and I think so. But I cannot answer for myself, 
 Dana, if this should last, if I should be tried too 
 cruelly. There is an invisible line in a woman's 
 nature of the existence of which I begin, for the 
 first time, to be aware. Once crossed, I perceive
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 231 
 
 that all the powers and principalities of love can- 
 not recross it. I have often thought it must be 
 the final anguish if I should be compelled to ad- 
 mit to my own soul that you had ceased to love 
 me. Dana, there is a finality worse than that. 
 If I should cease to \o\zyou then God help us 
 both ! Everything is mine as long as love is, I 
 sacredly believe that anything may be ours as 
 long as I love you. Hope can live as long as 
 love does. I could be so tender to you yet. 
 I could be so patient, and try so hard to make 
 you happy yet. 
 
 " There have been times (I wrote you so, can- 
 didly) when I have tried not to love you, in very 
 self-defense. I commit that spiritual gaucherie 
 no more. Now I summon my love, and cherish 
 it, like some precious escaping bird, lest it evade 
 me. Ah, help me to cage it, Dana ! You only 
 can. 
 
 "Did you ever think what it means to be a 
 desolate woman, to sit alone every day and all 
 the evenings'? Do you understand how far a 
 little kindness goes to a lonely wife thought- 
 fulness, unselfishness the being remembered 
 and cared for *? Did you never put the question 
 to yourself No ; I know you never did. And 
 I say you never shall. 
 
 " Dana, I ask you to come home. It is the
 
 232 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 first time, you will bear witness to me. And I 
 cannot tell you all the reasons why I do. In- 
 deed, I dp not think I understand them quite 
 myself. But I think you would respect them, 
 and I must tell you that I shall not ask again. 
 " Loyally and longingly, 
 
 " MARNA, your Wife. 
 
 July the tenth. 
 
 I THOUGHT I would go out myself, to-night, and 
 post that letter in the old box that has stood for 
 years on the elm at the opening of the governor's 
 avenue; it was put there by way of honoring my 
 father and making his large mail easier for him 
 to deal with. 
 
 It is a hot night, and there is a burning moon. 
 I ran across the lawn with Job, as I used to do, 
 as if I still had the right, not coming very near 
 to the Pendleton Hospital ; but I could see it 
 quite plainly the patients on the piazzas, the 
 lights in the long dining-room windows and in 
 the library, which is the doctor's office now. He 
 was sitting at his desk, absorbed and busy. I ran 
 on to mail my letter. When I got to the box, I 
 changed my mind, and thought I would not do 
 it. So I came back slowly, by the avenue, 
 meaning to cut athwart the shrubbery and come 
 out by the tree-house quite unnoticed, for I felt
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 233 
 
 as if all the moonlight of the world were concen- 
 trating on my organdie ; white dresses do give 
 one that impression on moonlit nights. 
 
 When I reached the tree-house the doctor was 
 walking slowly up the garden path, between the 
 July flowers. He had one of his patients with 
 him, a deaf old lady who is gifted with fits. 
 
 " I ain't had but six to-day," she announced. 
 
 Now Job does not like that old lady, and he 
 has acquired an unfortunate tendency to take her 
 by the hem of her dress and spin her round. As 
 I turned to anticipate Job in this too evident in- 
 tention, I dropped my letter. The doctor picked 
 it up and handed it to me. 
 
 " You did not mail it," he said. 
 
 " I decided not to, Doctor." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 When I made no answer, his face settled sternly. 
 
 " Wait a moment, Mrs. Herwin," he com- 
 manded in his professional voice. " I shall re- 
 turn directly." 
 
 " And only seven yesterday," put in the old 
 lady. 
 
 " Doctor," I said, " she will have sixteen if 
 Job plays top with her in his present frame of 
 mind. I can't manage him much longer." For 
 Job was barking, and wriggling out of his collar 
 to get at the old lady.
 
 234 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Smiling indulgently, the doctor drew his 
 patient away, and Job and I went up into the 
 tree-house to wait for him, and the large moon 
 regarded me solemnly through the vines. " Not 
 here," I thought, "not here!" For I remem- 
 bered Dana. So I came down from the tree- 
 house, and went into my own home, and Job 
 went with me. In a few minutes Robert came in, 
 knocking lightly on the open door, and waiting 
 for no answer. He did not sit down, but began 
 at once : 
 
 " Tell me, why did you not mail that letter 
 to your husband *? " 
 
 " Tell me why you ask." 
 
 He sighed, and turned. 
 
 " I know I seem to presume," he said wearily. 
 " But I thought you would forgive me, Mama. 
 And I had the feeling of course I may be 
 wrong that the letter had better go. Any- 
 thing that comes from your heart anything 
 that could do any good " 
 
 He did not finish his sentence, but abruptly 
 left me. I went to the door, and watched his 
 sturdy figure quickly crossing the lawn and the 
 hospital grounds, till it disappeared in the sacred 
 shadows of my father's house. I waited till he 
 had been gone awhile, and then ran out with 
 Job and mailed my letter.
 
 July the thirtieth. 
 
 HEATED seven times, the days pass through 
 the furnace. Only the nights are possible, 
 and one lies awake much to realize the fact. 
 Really, I find them more merciful than they often 
 are in this terrible month. While the moon lived 
 they were solemn and unreal, like the nights of 
 an unknown planet in which one was a chance 
 visitor. My brain burned, my head swam; I 
 thought strange thoughts and felt new emotions, 
 and was an alien to myself. Now that the 
 moon is dead, there is a singular quality in the 
 darkness; it creeps on compassionately, like 
 delicate and tender feeling, shielding one from 
 the fiery trouble of the obscured sun. I long for 
 the dark, and when it comes I feel as if it were 
 a cool hand, and I lay my cheek upon it, and 
 am quieted and comforted no, I am not com- 
 forted. I have not heard from Dana for eighteen 
 days. 
 
 I read somewhere in a society novel, once, 
 16 235
 
 236 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 of a husband and wife who could not live to- 
 gether, and she smiled and said : 
 
 " Dear Bertie is on a yacht." 
 
 But after a good while " people began to think 
 that yachting trip had lasted rather long." I won- 
 der if people think that Uruguay is lasting rather 
 long*? But I am astonished at my fixed indif- 
 ference to that sort of sting; what I endure is so 
 much more important than any one else's view 
 of what I endure. Married man and woman 
 are a universe to themselves. Other persons 
 look small to me, and quite distant, as if they 
 were the inhabitants of a different solar system. 
 
 The telephone people have changed our num- 
 ber. It is now 26 6, and went, I believe, into 
 the new book. 
 
 August the fifth. 
 
 MARION'S head hangs like a sun-smitten flower, 
 for the first dog-days are cruel to her, and the 
 doctor has been to see her every day for nearly 
 a week. She is better for the tireless attention 
 which he never fails to give her, and she has 
 grown very fond of him ; he, I think, of her. I 
 found him to-day with the child on his lap, and 
 Dombey in his arms ; Banny Doodle suspended 
 head first from his necktie, which had been un- 
 tied and retied for the purpose (who can fathom 
 the mental process which leads my daughter
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 237 
 
 systematically to deny to this unfortunate doll 
 the right to stand upon its feet ?) ; and Job was 
 crawling up his back. Job was engaged, I 
 think, in the noble purpose of rescuing Banny 
 Doodle. Job is attached to the doctor, but not 
 devotedly so. If the truth were known, I think 
 Job misses his master, though he would not 
 admit it for a pound of chops. The doctor is 
 not the master, and the master instinct in the 
 dog is stronger than his affections or inclinations. 
 I have found him several times, lately, sleeping 
 on a glove or a slipper of Dana's. I think Job's 
 jealousy of my husband has yielded to a sense 
 of anxiety about him. We are all growing a 
 little anxious. The doctor's eyes ask every 
 day, and he telephoned me last evening to 
 know if I had heard. 
 
 What would become of me without Robert ? 
 He never forgets, he never fails, he never neg- 
 lects. He carries my hapless lot as if it were a 
 shield that he might be brought home dead 
 upon and not regret it. He guards me, he 
 comforts me, he " keeps me from sinking down." 
 He counts himself out; he never thinks of his 
 own ease, of the burden that I am, of the price 
 that I may cost him. 
 
 I am not worthy of this chivalry. I always 
 knew that Robert was a gentleman, and, after
 
 238 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 all, there are none too many, but now I per- 
 ceive him to be a Knight of the Sacred Circle 
 where honor and tenderness are one quality. 
 He is faithful to " the highest when he sees 
 it," because that is his nature, and he can trust 
 himself to his nature; and I I can trust 
 him. 
 
 I write to Dana sometimes how kind Robert 
 is to us, and I have tried to explain to my hus- 
 band precisely how I feel about the doctor. I 
 think Robert is very much troubled about Dana's 
 long silence. To-day I took him unawares and 
 asked him quite quickly : 
 
 " Have you written to Mr. Herwin ? " 
 His face took on its transparent look, whiten- 
 ing visibly, but otherwise he showed no emotion, 
 and certainly nothing that could be called em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 " Why the question, Mrs. Herwin *? " 
 " Don't you wish me to ask it, Dr. Hazelton ? " 
 " It is your right, of course. But no I 
 do not wish it." 
 
 "Very well, Doctor. I will not ask it again." 
 He got up and paced the room, with his 
 hands in his pockets, and went to the window. 
 The blinds were closed and the light smote 
 through, and I saw the man as I did once be- 
 fore, standing in a gleaming stream with the sun-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 239 
 
 motes whirling about his head. He wheeled 
 
 unexpectedly. 
 
 " I will not confuse you. I have not written 
 to your husband. But if I should ever see oc- 
 casion to do so, I wish to take the liberty with- 
 out being questioned." 
 
 "Take it," I said. I held out my hands 
 toward him. "It is an unrestricted deed." 
 
 " You are quite sure that you trust me ? " he 
 asked, with just a perceptible catch in his breath. 
 Then I said : 
 
 " I would trust you, Robert, to the uttermost 
 ends of fate." And so I would. Who in all my 
 life has proved trustworthy, if not this old friend ? 
 Only my dear dead father ; no one else. As I 
 write, the candle is lighted by Marion's crib, and 
 I can see the compass pointing north. There is 
 something about this effect of gold and candle- 
 light that I wish I knew how to explain to my- 
 self I mean the sense of rest that it gives me. 
 It melts upon the nerve like late sunlight upon 
 green branches, or firelight upon happiness. 
 And yet that is not what I wish to say. I am 
 losing my power to express beautiful thoughts, 
 so many tragic ones devour me. Is the sense of 
 beauty meant only for the young, the inexperi- 
 enced, and the happy *? I have always thought 
 it was safer for the old and the sad.
 
 240 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 August the sixth. 
 
 I USED to dream incessantly about Dana. At 
 first there was scarcely a night that was not 
 cruel with him ; then it would happen for three 
 or four together, with spaces of mercy between. 
 He was generally in some trouble ill, or in 
 prison, or lost. There is one Uruguay swamp 
 which I think must be on the map, I know it 
 so by heart : it has palmettos, and yucca-bushes, 
 and seven cypress-trees in the foreground ; there 
 is an old bright-green log with a viper on it, 
 coiled (he wrote me about one called vivora 
 de la cruz because it had marks like a cross on 
 its head). Dana stands at the end of the log, 
 the end which dips into the water; he stretches 
 out his hands to me, and the log sinks, and then 
 the snake springs. 
 
 There is a prison in that country, somewhere, 
 barred with iron crosses at the windows, and he 
 comes to the window of his dungeon, he is far 
 below the ground, and lifts his arms, and I can 
 see his fingers and enough of his left hand to 
 recognize his wedding-ring. But I cannot see 
 his face, and I wake calling, " Dana ! " 
 
 Then there were dreams when I saw his face, 
 and woke to wish I had not. It was turned 
 quite fully to me, and it was dark and offended.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 241 
 
 I cannot say that it was his freezing face, but 
 he was always inscrutably displeased with me. 
 Sometimes he retreated from me across a wide 
 country, and I for I would not pursue him 
 stood with vast spaces between us, and wrung 
 my hands. At other times I could hear him 
 calling me repeatedly and anxiously, but I could 
 not see him at all. Thrice I lay staring and 
 sleepless all night, and at two o'clock I heard his 
 voice distinctly in my room. "Mama *? Mama ? " 
 he said loudly. 
 
 Once I had a dear dream, and cried for joy of 
 it. I thought he came home and in at the door 
 suddenly, and ran his hand through his dark 
 curls, and said in his old way : 
 
 " Marna, what a darn fool I was to leave you ! 
 I can't stand it any longer." I never had this 
 dream except that one time ; and he took me to 
 his heart, in the dream, and he cried out : " Have 
 I been too sure you would forgive me ? " Then 
 he found my lips, although I would have de- 
 nied them (for my heart was sore with its long 
 hurt), and he said : " This is the kiss that lives." 
 
 I do not dream of Dana so often lately. I 
 think I am rather glad of this, because the 
 dreams lasted for days, and I was ill as long as 
 they lasted.
 
 242 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 August the seventh. 
 
 MINNIE CURTIS came over to-day, and asked 
 what I heard from my husband. He was quite 
 well, I said, by the last letter. I thought she 
 regarded me with a certain pity, expressed in her 
 blonde way, without the complexion of reserve, 
 and I wondered why it did not annoy me. Only 
 yesterday the doctor said to me : 
 
 " The strongest trait in your character is your 
 indifference to inferior minds." 
 
 " Some one has been talking," I said at once. 
 " Not about " I stopped, for I felt ashamed 
 to have begun, and the color smote my face. 
 
 "Don't be foolish, Marna," replied the doctor, 
 gently. "Spare yourself. I shall take care of all 
 that." 
 
 " Some one has been talking about Uruguay," 
 I finished. 
 
 " I am glad you mind it so little," he returned 
 in his comfortable, comforting tone. 
 
 " Doctor," I demanded, " when your patients 
 are on the operating-table, would they mind a 
 wasp "? Or a hornet *? " 
 
 The doctor smiled : " I cannot say that I re- 
 member ever to have seen an insect of the spe- 
 cies, or any other, in an operating-room." 
 
 " You have said it," I maintained. " They are 
 never admitted."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 243 
 
 When Minnie got up to go, she went over to 
 the piano and began brushing the music about. 
 I never knew a girl with Minnie's nose who was 
 not, somewhere in sensibility, a defective. 
 
 "Ah," she said, "the 'Bedouin Love-Song"?" 
 She drummed a few chords of the prelude. 
 Then indeed I rose upon Minnie Curtis. I 
 think I actually took her by the shoulder, rather 
 hard, and I know that I pushed her hand back. 
 
 " You will not touch that music, if you please. 
 I do not like it disturbed." 
 
 Minnie colored and stared. 
 
 " You don't mean to say " she began. 
 
 In point of fact, Dana's music remains just as 
 he left it the last time he sang and played to me. 
 I never allow any person to touch it, for any 
 reason, and Luella and Ellen are forbidden to 
 dust the piano. But even Minnie Curtis's nose 
 was equal to the situation. She did not finish 
 her sentence. 
 
 When she had gone, I sat and eyed the music. 
 
 I love thee, I love but thee! 
 With a love that shall not die! 
 
 I whirled the piano-stool, which still spun with 
 Minnie's retreated figure, and hid my face upon 
 the rack. Thus and then I thought and I
 
 244 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 record that I thought it for the first time in my 
 life : 
 
 A man selects whom he pleases, and wins her 
 if he can; he slights the object of his love when 
 he will, and ceases to love when he chooses. A 
 woman's choice is among her choosers, and she 
 is denied the terrible advantage of the right to 
 woo. Why should eternal tenderness be ex- 
 pected of the more disabled, the less elective 
 feeling? Why should the life everlasting be 
 demanded of a woman's love *? I had got so far 
 when Marion came up and pecked at my muslin 
 dress (it was the old May-flower dress that her 
 father used to like), and said something about 
 Pity Popper ; so I took her in my lap and kissed 
 her hair, and I wished that I could cry. 
 
 When I looked up, the doctor was standing 
 in the middle of the room. I do not know how 
 long he had been there. He glanced at the 
 music on the rack. 
 
 " I am not going to use my horses this after- 
 noon," he said, prosaically enough. " I have 
 ordered James to come over and take you and 
 Marion to drive at four o'clock, when it cools a 
 little. You need the air." 
 
 He did not suggest that he drive with us, but 
 left me, smiling gently. I do not think I even 
 thanked him. But Marion ran and offered him
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 245 
 
 Dombey to kiss. This fact was the more im- 
 pressive because she had just fed Dombey on 
 raspberries and cream. 
 
 August the tenth. 
 
 OH, at last ! . . . Dana's letters came yester- 
 day three of them, stalled somewhere; whether 
 in the mails, or in his pockets, or on his desk, 
 who can say 4 ? He used to keep letters over 
 sometimes, and I would find them in such queer 
 places once I found two in- the umbrella-rack. 
 
 I say "he used to" as if my husband were 
 dead. In all separations there are the elements 
 of eternity; and in every farewell to the being 
 we love we set foot upon an undug grave. 
 
 Dana writes quite definitely and kindly. " I 
 shall resign the consulship," he says. " You 
 may expect me home this fall. I have had 
 enough of it. I am convinced that the climate 
 does not agree with me, and, in fact, I am not 
 very well." He sends more love than usual to 
 Marion, and his grateful regards to the doctor, 
 to whom I am to set forth the fact that he is 
 taking atropine3 x . He adds a postscript: 
 
 " I have been thinking how patient you were 
 with me when I had that devil of a grippe. You 
 were a dear old girl, Marna. A fellow misses 
 his home in a blank of a country like this. When 
 I get better shall you want me back?"
 
 246 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 SENT 
 
 " August the tenth. 
 
 " MY DEAR HUSBAND : Your letters were so 
 long delayed that we all had begun to be anx- 
 ious. I do not think I will try to tell you how 
 I felt when Ellen brought them in yesterday 
 and laid them on my lap. There was war on 
 her old face tears and smiles. In my heart, 
 too, were battling forces. Between anxiety and 
 joy, between my hurt and my love, I was rent. 
 I had waited a good while for these letters, 
 Dana. 
 
 "Shall I want you back? Try me and see ! I 
 hurry this off by the outgoing steamer to tell you 
 what an empty home waits for you how long- 
 ingly, and what a 
 
 " Loyal, loving 
 
 " WIFE. 
 
 " P.S. Marion is better, thanks to the doctor; 
 she has not been at all well lately. I will write 
 at more length to-night about her, and about 
 whatever I think will interest you. This note 
 goes only to hold out the arms of 
 
 "Your MARNA." 
 
 August the eleventh. 
 
 TO-DAY the doctor came, and I showed him 
 Dana's letters. I had, of course, telephoned the
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 247 
 
 news to him yesterday, as soon as I received it, 
 and he came in shining. One would have 
 thought it was his own happiness, not mine, that 
 was in the question. He had a high expression. 
 
 " I did not dare to hope for so much," he said 
 joyously, " nor quite so soon." 
 
 " At least," I sobbed (for I could not help it), 
 " he is alive. He had been silent so long, I had 
 begun to suffer, Doctor. And I did not want 
 to cable and make myself troublesome to him." 
 
 Something in Robert's face or manner per- 
 plexed me, and I said abruptly : 
 
 " You have been writing to him ! " 
 
 " I have not written to Mr. Herwin." 
 
 " Cabled, then ? " 
 
 " Nor cabled." 
 
 "You might as well tell me what you have 
 done. I think I ought to know." 
 
 "You were so kind as to say that you trusted 
 me." 
 
 " And I do ! I do ! Never mind, Doctor." 
 
 " But I do mind, and I will tell you. I took 
 steps to learn if he were still at the consulate. 
 Of course I did this very quietly and suit- 
 ably." 
 
 " How long ago? " 
 
 " Three weeks." 
 
 " You did not tell me."
 
 248 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " I did not think it would make you any 
 happier, on the whole." 
 
 " Have you ever done this before ? " 
 He hesitated. " It is not the first time, I ad- 
 mit. I want you to feel that I shall do what- 
 ever is necessary and best for you " 
 
 " Robert," I tried to say, " you are a good 
 man. I bless you from my heart." 
 
 "I receive," he said, "the benediction." 
 He bowed his head and stood beside me 
 quite silently ; and before I could think what 
 I should say, he was gone. 
 
 August the twentieth. 
 
 IT is on record that the fakirs really do live 
 buried for forty days, and are reanimated. It is 
 with me as if I had held my breath since the 
 seventh of October last, and now began to in- 
 hale feebly, for the long asphyxia. Now that I 
 know I need not suffer, I scarcely know how to 
 be happy. In the morning I wake and think : 
 "It will soon be over." At night I fall asleep 
 saying something that perhaps religious people 
 would call a prayer. I have not learned to 
 pray, for I am not yet religious : I am only dis- 
 illusioned with the irreligious. I find that pa- 
 ganism has not helped perceptibly in that form 
 of fate which has been appointed to me. " After
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 249 
 
 all," I say, " there is a God, and He is merciful." 
 And then I sleep long, blessed nights. Any- 
 thing can be borne, I think, if one sleeps, even 
 
 The days have wings. They fly from me 
 like strange birds lost on their way from some 
 tropical country. There are forest fires some- 
 where, and here the August air is impearled 
 with haze, or smoke, or both. There is an unreal 
 light all the time. The sun sinks like a burning 
 ship in a sullen sea, and if there were a moon, 
 she would be the ghost of a lovely mermaid 
 diving. I feel excited every minute, as if 
 God knows what would befall. I suppose it 
 is because I am so happy. 
 
 " Try to be calmer," said Mercibel, to-day. 
 *' It is quite unnecessary to wreck yourself." 
 
 " Mercibel," I demanded, " have you seen me 
 shed a tear? Or do any foolish thing *? " 
 
 " If I had," retorted Mercibel, dimpling, " I 
 might have spared myself any comments on the 
 subject." I can see that she watches me fur- 
 tively. 
 
 So does the doctor. No; the adverb is mis- 
 placed : I never saw Robert do a furtive thing. 
 Rather should I say that he guards me quite 
 openly. I think he has caused it to be gener- 
 ally known that my husband will soon be at
 
 250 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 home. He took us to ride yesterday, Marion 
 and me ; it is the first time that he has done so. 
 He looks a little pale, but every recurrence of 
 feeling on his face is receptive, as if he reflected 
 my happiness. He has borne my troubles so 
 long and so uncomplainingly, how glad I am 
 to lighten his load ! I wish I could be merrier. 
 I am conscious of trying to express the expected 
 amount of gladness for the doctor's sake. It is 
 remarkable how rigid the emotions grow when 
 they have set in certain attitudes too long. 
 
 August the thirty-first. 
 
 WE are very happy. Dana's letters come 
 more regularly than they did, and I reply fre- 
 quently and comfortably; I find myself much 
 more at ease in writing to my husband. He tells 
 me to expect him when his year's service is over, 
 if not, indeed, before, and that he will soon be 
 able to be more definite. The neighbors (in- 
 cluding Minnie Curtis) come in and wish me 
 joy, and some old friends who have had the 
 delicacy to keep silent while I have been filling 
 the role of the neglected wife hasten to share 
 my relief from the position, and particularly to 
 congratulate me in that I did not accompany 
 my husband to Montevideo. " The child made 
 it impossible," they say politely.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 251 
 
 Marion talks incessantly about Pity Popper, 
 and orders for a new bicycle-suit have been 
 issued in Dombey's behalf, while Job is des- 
 tined to a Yale-blue plush ulster; but Banny 
 Doodle, whose wedding-dress is as gray and dim 
 as an outlived honeymoon, is to have nothing at 
 all unless the clothes-wringer, a dark fate on 
 the teeth of which this hapless doll is forever 
 clutched. " Tell Ellen sqush her frough ! " 
 commands my daughter, contemptuously. Mer- 
 cibel asked me to-day, with some embarrassment, 
 if I did not think I needed some new dresses 
 myself. I had not thought of it. I believe 
 I have not had a new gown since Dana left. 
 I compromised with Mercibel upon a long 
 white cape to catch up and run about the 
 grounds in. 
 
 A lady told me once that she never in her life 
 had ordered a black street-dress but that there 
 was a death in the family, and she had given up 
 black street-dresses. 
 
 I wonder, if I instituted a new ruby house- 
 gown, if Dana would come home any sooner? 
 Or if we should be any happier when he did 
 come *? Colors are forces, I think, and their 
 power lies among the subtleties and the sorceries. 
 Who knows where it begins or ends ? If the 
 heart of the wife is in the ruby jewel, the arms
 
 252 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 of the wife are in the ruby velvet . . . Shall I 
 extend them ? 
 
 My old gown is quite crushed and paled ; it 
 has a grieved look. Why do I hesitate to have 
 more wife velvet? Why is it so difficult to 
 renew a faded rapture *? And is it a duty ? Or 
 a sacrilege *? 
 
 " You are looking tired," the doctor said to- 
 day ; " we must have a better color before Mr. 
 Herwin comes." He talks a good deal about 
 Mr. Herwin's coming. He seems to think of it all 
 the time. He is so kind to Marion and to me 
 that I can but dwell on his kindness continually. 
 It runs through my happiness a comfort 
 within a hope like a thread of silver twisted 
 with a thread of gold. The other evening I ran 
 out with Job about the grounds, and I saw the 
 doctor's shadow on the shades of his office win- 
 dow; he was sitting at his desk, with his face 
 bowed on his hands, and he looked to me (in the 
 shadow) a lonely man. It occurs to me that it 
 is rather noble in Robert to be so happy in my 
 happiness. So was he grieved in my grieving; 
 so was he broken on my rack. 
 
 Sometimes it seems to me that he shelters 
 my joy as if it were a faint flame that a rude 
 wind might blow out as if he put his hand 
 around it carefully.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 253 
 
 SENT 
 
 " September the third. 
 
 " DANA MY DEAR : I hurry this it is but a 
 postscript to my letter to say that I am begin- 
 ning to dream of you again (I have not lately), 
 and that last night I had the dearest dream that 
 ever a wife had of her husband in the dream- 
 history of separated married people. I thought 
 you came home sooner than we expected you, 
 and hurried in, and said But when you come 
 home I shall tell you all about it, if you will 
 care to hear. I shall not forget it. Some dreams 
 are more real than facts, I find, so I treasure this 
 for you. I am treasuring much. I am preserv- 
 ing my power to be happy (for that is a faculty 
 which weakens rapidly with disuse), and am fling- 
 ing offmy experience of suffering. I am forgetting 
 that you have hurt me, and remembering that 
 you are coming to me. I am forgetting that 
 we have ever failed to make each other happy, 
 and I am thinking that we loved each other 
 dearly. And, Dear, I began to write this only 
 to tell you that I have begun to count the days. 
 I think you will sail on the lyth of Octo- 
 ber; don't you? And that is forty-and-four 
 days. 
 
 " And I am four-and- forty times your waiting 
 
 "WIFE."
 
 254 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 September the fifth. 
 
 LAST night I dreamed again of Dana, and I 
 write it out to rid me of it. It was a composite 
 dream, and worse than any. There was the log 
 and the swamp, the seven cypresses and the yucca, 
 and the viper; the coil, the spring, and the fall; 
 and there were the bars of crosses, and the dun- 
 geon, and his uplifted hand with the wedding- 
 ring. And there was always his dark, offended 
 face. 
 
 Then he came home, in the dream, and he 
 was as he used to be before he went away; 
 and he spoke and he did as he used to speak 
 and do. And, oh, it all happened all over again ! 
 My husband was not kind to me he was not 
 kind! 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 I WENT to church to-day with Marion. They 
 sang : " As it was in the beginning, is now, and 
 ever shall be." . . . What if, when he comes 
 back, it should be just the same? Will the ice 
 in his nature solidify *? Or the fire of it melt *? 
 It is a war of the elements. It is a strange thing 
 when a wife must say : " I know no more than 
 any other woman, any chance acquaintance, what 
 my husband will do, how his character will 
 express itself."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 255 
 
 September the tenth. 
 
 AND yet we are very happy. It is as if the bow 
 of pain had bent, and the arrow of joy were fly- 
 ing to its mark. We live in a kind of exaltation. 
 I can see my excitement reflected in every face 
 Mercibel's, Marion's, Ellen's, and, most sensi- 
 tively of all, in Job's ; more unerringly than any 
 person, Job knows when I am glad or sad. 
 
 The doctor's sympathy is a fact by itself, 
 something apart from that of other friends. It is 
 like the atmosphere, or the law of gravitation. I 
 breathe it, and I stand upon it. What was I 
 writing the other day about elements'? There 
 is elemental peace as well as elemental war. 
 
 I am young and well (as women go), and I 
 inherit physical health, but I think, as I look back 
 on the closing record of this year, that if it had 
 not been for Robert I might have died. 
 
 I told him so this evening. 
 
 " Do not overestimate that," he said quickly. 
 We were sitting on the piazza, for there is a 
 warm starlight, and he had come over to see if 
 I had heard any news from Dana. 
 
 " It would not be possible," I persisted, " to 
 tell you, Robert, how I feel about what you have 
 done for me the kindness, the care, the trouble 
 you have taken for us the obligation "
 
 256 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Ellen, from the nursery above, where she 
 was putting Marion to bed, began to sing 
 shrilly : 
 
 His loving ki-i-*W-ness, oh, how great ! 
 
 " Listen ! " I said, laughing, and I held up my 
 hand. It was my left hand, and the moon 
 blazed upon my wedding-ring. I crossed my 
 hands in my lap, and my betrothal ruby flared 
 before my eyes and his, a gleam of crimson fire. 
 The doctor did not speak, and I sat and watched 
 the ruby of all colors the glorious, the rap- 
 turous, burning deep down to the heart. 
 
 " It is chilly for you here," said the doctor. 
 " You will come indoors." He did not speak 
 quite naturally, though quietly and firmly, as he 
 always does. He rose, and stood for me to pass 
 in at the door. 
 
 " Are n't you coming in *? " I cried. I felt dis- 
 appointed ; I am alone so much, and it is such 
 a comfort to me to see my old friends I have 
 not too many. No ; I will be quite candid : it 
 is a comfort to me to see the doctor. How could 
 I help that? How could I? If I ought, I 
 would. And I should be willing to show him 
 my whole heart and all that is therein, and I am 
 sure he knows that, too. I have not a thought 
 nor a feeling that I should be uncomfortable to
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 257 
 
 have him see, and when Dana comes I shall tell 
 them all to Dana every one. 
 
 " I don't think I will come in to-night," re- 
 plied the doctor. " My patients " He paused. 
 
 " How is the old lady *? " I demanded. " How 
 many has she had to-day *? " 
 
 " Only two. I should soon discharge her, but 
 she does n't want to go." He laughed. . . . 
 That laugh seemed to clear the air of I know 
 not what, and I know not why. 
 
 " There ! " I said. " You see for yourself it is 
 much better to come in. Your patients are all 
 quite comfortable just now. There is not one of 
 them who needs you as much as I." 
 
 Hesitating perceptibly, he came in. There 
 was a fire laid on the library hearth, and he took 
 a match and lighted it. The blaze leaped and 
 struck him in the face. ... I was shocked at its 
 expression. 
 
 " I have hurt you ! " I managed to say. 
 
 "Child," he faltered, "you cannot help it." 
 
 " I wish to change Marion's medicine," he 
 hastened to add in his usual voice, " while I am 
 here. Will you ring for a glass *? Or shall I *? " 
 
 I rang, and Luella brought the tumbler, and 
 the doctor prepared the medicine silently. He 
 had not sat down, and I pushed a chair toward 
 him ; he did not appear to see it.
 
 258 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 *' Two teaspoonfuls once in four hours, if you 
 please, Mrs. Herwin." His tone was quite pro- 
 fessional, and the muscles of his face had stif- 
 fened ; I perceived that he did not mean to stay 
 perhaps, God knows, that he did not dare. . . . 
 Then swiftly it seemed to me as if I could have 
 gone up and sat at his feet and put my head on 
 his knee like Marion and cried; and I 
 thought how he would have put his hand on my 
 head and comforted me as he does the child. 
 And I was not ashamed that I thought it ; but I 
 did not tell him my thoughts. I opened my 
 lips to say : " Don't go, Doctor ! " and I closed 
 them. I should be glad to remember that I did 
 not say it, only that I am afraid I said a thing less 
 kind, more weak. For everything that I had 
 ever read and heard about friendships that people 
 may have men and women, right women, 
 good men came crowding to my mind. Once 
 I thought it impossible that I could experience 
 friendship, or need it, after I married Dana : now, 
 to-night, I remembered all that haughtiness of 
 happiness and that bigotry of inexperience with 
 a kind of scorn of myself, for I perceived that 
 I am more pitiable, needing friendship, than 
 I was happy, having love. My head swam 
 a little, and Dr. Hazelton's face seemed to 
 blur and recede from me like a countenance
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 259 
 
 within a cloud, so exalted was the man's 
 look. 
 
 " Doctor ! " I cried, " what is this ?* ... Is it 
 friendship, Robert?" 
 
 Then across his eyes there passed the sacred 
 war which no woman, witnessing, could forget : 
 for she would reverence the man and do him 
 obeisance in her soul forever, because his knew 
 no reproach, as it had known no fear; and be- 
 cause the affection with which he had honored 
 her was a matter to be proud of, and nobler 
 for, and better for, as long as she should live, 
 or he. 
 
 "Call it friendship, child," said Robert, not 
 quite steadily. " It is a good word, safe and 
 strong, and it is respected of God and men." 
 
 " It is quite a true word, too," he added more 
 distinctly "for you, Marna." His eyes did 
 not evade me, but met mine wistfully and 
 straight; they were as remote and as mournful 
 as the eyes of some higher being set to watch 
 the sealed tomb of a lower life. He spoke 
 more quickly: "We must be honest with our- 
 selves in everything . . . you and I. And very 
 careful. I try to be ! " 
 
 "I know you do! I know you are!" I cried. 
 "God bless you, Robert!" 
 
 He held out his hand ; it was cold. I put
 
 260 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 mine into it, trembling; for I felt afraid but 
 not of him. 
 
 September the thirteenth. 
 
 WHO was it who wrote that "God bless you!" 
 was equal to a kiss? Sterne, I think. But 
 what could Sterne know of the holy war? 
 the sacred victories'? the high nature of a man 
 like this? the soul of a desolate woman, saved 
 from despair because she had been understood, 
 and guarded, too? 
 
 September the fifteenth. 
 
 WHERE did I track that ballad about the 
 skipper's daughter? 
 
 "... a man might sail to hell in your companie." 
 " Why not to Heaven ? " quo' she. . . . 
 
 It has doubled, and is hunting me down. 
 
 September the twentieth. 
 
 THERE is no letter from Dana. And it is our 
 wedding-day. What a freak of fate that a 
 woman should try to forget her wedding-day! 
 The doctor has not been over to-day at all. 
 
 September the twenty-first. 
 
 THIS morning very early, at half-past eight, 
 the doctor came. He walked in without ringing,
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 261 
 
 and called me, in a low voice, from the foot of 
 the stairs. I ran down, and Marion and Job 
 came tumbling after. The doctor detained the 
 child gently, that she should not follow us into 
 the library; but Job slid in. Then Robert shut 
 the door, and then I saw the cold autumn morn- 
 ing light full upon my old friend's face. 
 
 " Dana is dead ! " I cried. 
 
 "No no no!" he gasped. "It is only 
 this." 
 
 He held out a cablegram ; his hand shook 
 more than mine. I read it, and folded it, hand- 
 ing it, without speaking, to the doctor, who 
 extended his fingers to take it back. This was 
 the despatch : 
 
 " To Dr. Hazelton. 
 
 " Sail Saturday San Francisco. Advised voy- 
 age round Cape for health. Have written. Tell 
 my wife. HERWIN." 
 
 I could not see quite clearly for a little, and I 
 got to the Morris chair and put my head back. 
 Job jumped into my lap and began to kiss me, 
 whining as he did so. It was so dark about me 
 that still I could not see any object in the room 
 except the face of the Yorkshire, and I clung to 
 my dog; I think I said : " Ton love me, Job, at 
 any rate ! " but I am not sure. I did not think
 
 262 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 about Marion, nor about any person. It was 
 as if I were a girl again, and had only 
 Job. I believe I said: "Father! I want my 
 father ! " but I cannot tell ; and then I sup- 
 pose the doctor caught me and lifted me, 
 for I felt that I was slipping sidewise to the 
 floor. 
 
 . . . When my head cleared and the room 
 had lightened, I was on the lounge. Mercibel 
 was doing something to my clothes, and rubbing 
 my feet; the doctor had my hands in his, and 
 warmed them gently; there was brandy on the 
 table, and his medicine-case. As I turned, he 
 drew my little girl between us, and put her in 
 my arms. Marion began to babble : " Pity 
 Popper ! " Then my voice came to me, and 
 broke upon me, overcoming me against my 
 will. I am afraid I said : 
 
 "Oh, pity Mommer, Marion! Pity Mommer!" 
 No one spoke in answer to me. In the still- 
 ness I heard the dog whining. They had put 
 him down, and he crawled back upon the lounge, 
 and made his way to my neck, and clung there 
 and kissed me with compassionate rapture my 
 truest and most helpless friend. 
 
 September the twenty-second. 
 
 I. WRITE, that I may endure : for it helps me to 
 do so it always did ; I am thus created. To-day
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 263 
 
 the doctor suffered me to talk of what has hap- 
 pened, though he would not yesterday; but now 
 I am much stronger, and stiller, for I will not 
 break under this broadside, nor will I be shamed 
 by it to my own soul. 
 
 " You have gained perceptibly since last even- 
 ing," he began in his usual voice. " You are 
 brave." 
 
 " I am the veriest coward who ever was 
 selected to stand under heavy fire," I protested. 
 " The only thing is that I know it, and so don't 
 run." 
 
 " That is the way the best soldiers are made," 
 replied the doctor, smiling sadly. 
 
 " Run I will not from this," I said. " It is 
 a battle to the death now. There is one thing 
 on which he has not counted the roused pride 
 of a tender woman. The powder was belated," 
 I added, " and it is smokeless, Doctor ; but it 
 will do some execution yet." Something in my 
 voice seemed to wring his heart. 
 
 " Marna ! " he entreated me, " Mama, don't ! " 
 
 "' Robert," I demanded, " tell me the holy 
 truth. Nothing less and nothing else will serve 
 me now. . . . Has my husband deserted me ? " 
 He had now quite regained himself. His 
 averted profile did not betray him; it was gray 
 and pinched, but it is often so. He turned his 
 head and looked me nobly in the eye.
 
 264 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " I will not deceive you," he said. " It may 
 be so. I do not know" 
 
 " Believe the best," he added in his reasonably 
 cheerful voice, " until your letter comes. There 
 is to be a letter yet." 
 
 I said : " Oh, is there ? " I had forgotten all 
 about the letter. 
 
 October the first. 
 
 AND once I was writing notes to ghosts my 
 mother, who ceased from me when I was a little 
 girl, and pretty Ina, dead in her teens. There 
 are no ghost letters on these pages now. Life 
 has accepted my manuscript, and edited it 
 sternly, drawing his dele-mark through all the 
 fantasies. 
 
 And yet, I think if I could see my father for 
 one moment - perhaps he would find a way to 
 help me. He always did ; he was full to the brim 
 of love-inventions. And if he came in at the 
 door and said, "Now, Daughter " I should 
 expect the miracle. In the last few days I 
 think I have prayed to my father. 
 
 If Dana should never come in at the door 
 again there is no letter yet. I have come to 
 regard the door as an enemy, as something forced 
 between us, and I have stolen down for several 
 nights and drawn the bolts, and slept with the 
 house unlocked.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 265 
 
 October the third. 
 
 THE letter has come. I suppose it is what I 
 should expect, and yet I cannot say that it is. 
 He sets forth the fact that he has not been well, 
 and that the only doctor he could get hold of 
 in that blanked country who seems to possess 
 a dose of sense ordered the sea-voyage. He 
 takes a coasting steamer, by name the Marion. 
 He will cable from San Francisco, and I am to 
 write to the hotel whose name he gives me. He 
 is sorry to disappoint me, and I shall hear from 
 him as often as possible. He cannot yet set a 
 date for his return, but hopes that it will not be 
 long delayed. He sends his love to the baby, 
 and his regards to the doctor, to whom I am to 
 express my husband's warmest gratitude for the 
 faithful care which has been given to the family. 
 The letter reads like a copy-book with broken 
 sentences; there are several such, and the whole 
 thing is a reluctant medley. There is not a 
 genuine word in it from beginning to end. He 
 adds that he is glad to leave a country where 
 there are two thousand species of insects and 
 where the spiders are as large as something that 
 I could not make out. 
 
 Later. 
 
 A SCRAP from Dana's letter fell when I opened 
 the envelope, I suppose I was confused and
 
 266 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 excited, and it wavered away and dropped 
 somewhere. Job has just found it and brought 
 it to me, wagging joyously. When I read the 
 scrap, I kissed Job and blessed him, for this 
 is it: 
 
 " P.S. You 're a sweet old girl, Marna. For 
 God's sake, think as well of me as you can." 
 
 October the fourth. 
 
 I SHOWED the letter to the doctor, for I felt that 
 I had better. 
 
 "Is this all?" he asked. 
 
 " There is a postscript," I admitted. " I do not 
 know whether to show it to you or not." 
 
 " Have you written *? " he persisted. 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Cabled?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Are n't you going to do either *? or both ? " 
 
 " I have not made up my mind." 
 
 " Let me see the postscript," he replied au- 
 thoritatively. 
 
 I unfastened it from this page and showed it 
 to him, and pinned it back again in its place. 
 Neither of us spoke. The doctor went to the 
 window in that way he has, and stood with his 
 hands in his pockets, looking out a sturdy
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 267 
 
 figure, all man, from his strong head to his firm 
 foot. I wondered that I had ever called him 
 "too short," and that I used to think him plain. 
 
 "You stand between me and despair," I 
 thought. But the thing I said was : 
 
 " Robert, what shall I do ? " 
 
 " Give me time," he answered patiently ; " I 
 must think." He left me without looking at 
 me. 
 
 October the fifth. 
 TO-DAY he came again, and began at once : 
 
 " Mrs. Herwin, I have come to say that I do 
 not know how to advise you. This situation 
 has passed beyond me. It has passed from the 
 ordinary to the extraordinary perplexity. I am 
 afraid. ... I am sorry to seem to fail you ! " 
 He broke suddenly. 
 
 " There is a point," he hurried on, "where the 
 third soul cannot trespass. Your tragedy has 
 reached that point. It may not remain there : it 
 may take on new phases . . . something where 
 I can be of use again. If I can you know 
 you will not have to ask." 
 
 I said something I don't know what half 
 inarticulate ; but he spoke again, before I had 
 finished : 
 
 " Just now I think only your own heart can 
 counsel you. Follow it. I can give you no 
 
 18
 
 268 CONFESSIONS* OF A WIFE 
 
 other advice to-day. When I have considered 
 the matter further I may have more to say. For 
 the present, do not depend upon my judgment, 
 but upon your own instincts." 
 
 As he moved to leave me, a shaft of sunlight 
 which his figure had interrupted fell across the 
 hair of my little daughter, who, running in, had 
 sprung upon me and at that moment laid her 
 face upon my lap. I put out my hand to smooth 
 her curls, her father's curls, and the ruby on 
 my finger received the light deep to the core of 
 the splendor. 
 
 "It is the heart of the wife," I thought. 
 
 Yet at that moment so perplexed am I, 
 so torn and troubled it seemed to me that if the 
 doctor left me so I should perish of my bewil- 
 dered desolation. And I did utter these weak 
 and bitter words : 
 
 " I am sorry to have been so troublesome to 
 you." 
 
 He wheeled as if I had smitten him. 
 
 " I think, Mrs. Herwin, I have deserved to be 
 better understood by you than that." 
 
 Then indeed I followed the counsel of my 
 heart, for it urged me, and I cried out : 
 
 " Forgive me, Robert ! . . . I am so wretched ! 
 ... I have nobody but you ! . . ." 
 
 I got up to put Marion out of the room, for 
 it was no sight for her, to see her mother weep-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 269 
 
 ing and I could not have helped it if I had 
 been slain for it. I shut the door, and put my 
 head on the top of the Morris chair, and, so 
 standing, I cried and cried. 
 
 And then I heard from between the teeth of 
 my old friend these five half-strangled words : 
 
 " Good God ! How could he ? " 
 
 I do not think he knew I heard them, and I 
 hope he did not. I motioned him to leave 
 me, and he did so instantly. I did n<->t see his 
 face, for I did not lift my own. 
 
 October the tenth. 
 
 THERE have been burglars about us lately, and 
 the neighborhood is uneasy. I wonder why I 
 am not ? A burglar is such a small trouble ! I 
 have scarcely seen the doctor for almost a week, 
 and although I have been really ill with I don't 
 know what, I have not summoned him. To- 
 day Mercibel came over, and ran back, and sent 
 him immediately. He was so entirely himself 
 that he put me at my ease at once. Neither of 
 us alluded to the circumstances of his last call. 
 He prepared his powders, gave me some quiet 
 professional advice, and rose to go. Then, quite 
 naturally, as he has been in the habit of speak- 
 ing, he observed : 
 
 " Have you cabled ? " 
 
 "No."
 
 270 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Written ? " 
 
 " No, Doctor." 
 
 " Are you going to ? " 
 
 " I have not made up my mind. Of course 
 he is at sea now. Is there any hurry ? " 
 
 He did not reply. 
 
 " If this is desertion " I began. 
 
 " And if it is not ? " interrupted the doctor, 
 quickly. 
 
 " Robert," I said, " if you knew anything 
 about Dana that I did n't should you tell me"? " 
 . " Perhaps not." 
 
 "And yet, if I needed to know, if I ought to 
 know " 
 
 " Have you ceased to trust me, Marna ? " 
 Robert asked. 
 
 I held out my hand. He took it, laid it down, 
 and looked at me. 
 
 "You may not have all the perplexity," he 
 said gently. " I am trying to do the best I can." 
 
 "If the worst were true, if he means this," 
 I insisted, " would you have me pursue him ? " 
 
 A terrible gleam flickered in Robert's eyes, 
 but his pale lips were locked. 
 
 "And if the worst were not true if there 
 were some reason, something that I do not un- 
 derstand " 
 
 " Consider this possible," he interrupted, more
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 271 
 
 impetuously than he is apt to speak ; " in making 
 your decision, allow for such a margin. ... If 
 I knew, I should be able to counsel you. I can- 
 not advise you on a working hypothesis. As 
 the thing stands at this crisis, I would rather 
 trust your heart than my head." 
 
 "Child," he added, "remember that I am not 
 unwilling to do anything. I have a good 
 deal to consider . . . not for myself . . . but 
 for you, Mama." 
 
 Then he fell upon the phrase that he had used 
 before : 
 
 "We must do God help us! the best 
 we can." 
 
 November the tenth. 
 
 WHERE is that cataract which spends itself be- 
 fore it becomes spray and falls, so great the height 
 from which it leaps? Nothing but mist reaches 
 the ground. 
 
 What shall a woman do with the current of a 
 feeling fixed at too far a height, and dashing over 
 to its own destruction in too deep a gulf 1 ? My 
 love is a spent cataract, wasted in mid-air. Last 
 night I waked suddenly and found myself 
 saying : " I wish I had never seen my hus- 
 band's face." I have never said that before. 
 It is as if I had blasphemed for the first time 
 in my life. I quiver with it yet. When I
 
 272 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 slept again, I waked again, and that time I was 
 saying : 
 
 Oh, each man kills the thing he loves ; . . . 
 The brave man does it with a sword, 
 The coward with a kiss. 
 
 I have not heard from Dana. The doctor 
 asked me two weeks ago if I had written, and I 
 said : " Only that once." I kept a copy of the 
 letter, as I have I wonder why of several 
 letters (but not all) that I have written him 
 since he went to South America. 
 
 SENT 
 
 "Mr DEAR DANA: I try to write, as you asked, 
 but my pen is dumb. What would you have 
 me say? If a ' man would kill the thing he 
 loves,' he smites to slay, he does not torture. 
 If you would tear the tie between us be a man 
 and tell me so. There is, I think, a circle of fate 
 where a woman's love will parley with neglect 
 no more. Mine has reached that invisible cir- 
 cumference. It used to be eternal growth and 
 motion, like the ripples of the ether, when a '* 
 sacred word has been spoken, widening on and 
 out forever. Now, everywhere that I turn I 
 meet the boundary ; and I must say that I am 
 afraid to measure it, lest I should perceive that
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 273 
 
 it is narrowing. Are you playing with your own 
 soul or with my tenderness? Be candid with 
 me, for your own sake, for the child's, and for 
 mine. MARNA. 
 
 " P.S. Dana ! Dana ! You ask me to 
 think the best I can of you. Then tell me what 
 to think, I pray you, Dear. Are you sick? I 
 would come to you anywhere, anyhow and, 
 oh, I would cherish you still. Are you in any 
 trouble? I would share it to the uttermost pang. 
 Have you done anything wrong, Dana? I would 
 be the first to forgive it, to forget it. I would 
 help you to put it behind you, to bear the con- 
 sequences, no matter what they are or might 
 become. Trust me, Dana. Confide in me 
 even now. Tell me the worst, and I will be- 
 lieve the best. Share with me your trouble 
 I don't care what it is even if it is the trouble 
 of ceasing to love me. Let us meet that misery 
 together as once we met love together, and help 
 each other to bear it as best we can, because we 
 chose each other, and you did love me, and I 
 am * Your WIFE." 
 
 There has been no answer to this letter. The 
 spray of the cataract turns sleet, and I can im- 
 agine that in time there might a glacier form in 
 the gulf below.
 
 274 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I can see that the doctor grows anxious. He 
 has ceased to ask me whether I have written to 
 my husband. Nor do I longer question him. I 
 can see that Mercibel pities me. I thought I 
 was fond of Mercibel, but now I do not like to 
 have her near me very often. I do not care to 
 see any person, I wince at every point of hu- 
 man contact, yet I cannot show it. I am like 
 an animal fixed in a torture-trough by experi- 
 menters. My house has become my world. I 
 see my servants, my child, and the doctor. He 
 does not come as often as he did. I perceive 
 that even he is affected by the position I am in, 
 and that, in fact, I can take no natural hold on 
 life anywhere. Robert is very careful. The 
 Knight of the Sacred Circle makes no weak mis- 
 takes. Yet I feel from my soul that my fate 
 bears upon his continually. I may be wrong, 
 a desolate woman is apt to lose her sense of pro- 
 portion in measuring her effect upon a man who 
 cares for her at all, but it seems to me as if my 
 old friend did not forget me for an hour. And 
 when he does come oh, God bless him! God 
 bless him as I never can, but as I would, and 
 I am not afraid or ashamed to say so ! I would 
 so bless him, if I could, that he should be hap- 
 pier, having my friendship, than he could be
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 275 
 
 having the love of any gladder, freer woman in 
 the world. 
 
 I wish that I could tell him so. 
 
 November the twelfth. 
 
 HE came to-day, and I tried to tell him ; it 
 seemed to me as if I must as if I owed so great 
 a debt to his chivalry, and his pure and high 
 affection, that the least I could do was to express 
 as much as that to him. Why, I could say it 
 before all the world ! But he forbade me by a 
 gentle motion of the hand. 
 
 " Hush, Marna. You need not explain it. 
 I understand." 
 
 " It is true," he added, as if he had really un- 
 derstood the very words upon which he sealed 
 my lips. " I do feel in that way. And I am 
 happier as it is than I could be . . ." 
 
 " You need not explain, either," I interrupted, 
 smiling. " I, too, can understand." 
 
 We shook hands and parted quietly. His 
 presence remains for a long while after he has 
 visibly left me. I read the other day : 
 
 It is easy to throw off a hand of flesh, but not the clasp 
 of a human soul. 
 
 Everything comes to the spirit at last, I find.
 
 276 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Might there be some subtle and sacred advan- 
 tage reserved for that which begins with the 
 spirit and does not descend ? 
 
 Love is like God, omnipotent, immutable, in- 
 scrutable, and they that worship it must worship 
 it in spirit and in truth. 
 
 Next to God, the best thing is a true-hearted 
 and high-minded friend. 
 
 November the fifteenth. 
 
 MARION was taken suddenly last night with one 
 of her croupy throats (she is entirely relieved 
 to-day), and Ellen telephoned for the doctor. 
 It was half-past two. He got over on the wings 
 of the wind, and lavished himself upon the baby 
 for an hour; nor did he speak to me at all, ex- 
 cept to give me professional orders. When the 
 child was relieved, he asked me to step down- 
 stairs for a moment. We stood together in the 
 hall. There was no light except from the compass- 
 candle, which I had carried down ; it had a gen- 
 tle flame. 
 
 " I found the front door unlocked," he began 
 with abrupt severity. " You had sent Ellen to 
 draw the bolts for me, I presume ? " 
 
 " No, Doctor.' ;
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 277 
 
 " Was it intentionally unlocked ? " 
 
 " Yes, Doctor." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " I cannot explain why. I ... feel happier 
 so." 
 
 "Since when?" 
 
 " Oh, for quite a while, I think. It seems as 
 if I could not lock it. I tried." 
 
 " This has been so since your husband cabled 
 last?" 
 
 " Yes, Robert." 
 
 "Don't you know that it is positively unsafe 
 for yourself, your family? You must know 
 that the autumn burglaries in the suburbs have 
 been worse this year. You are as liable to have 
 trouble as any one else, and you are quite 
 unprotected." 
 
 " We sleep with all our bedrooms bolted, 
 Doctor thoroughly." 
 
 "You should sleep with your front door 
 locked and bolted after this." 
 
 I made no reply. 
 
 " Will you do so, Mrs. Herwin ? " 
 
 " No, Dr. Hazelton." 
 
 " Why not, Marna ? " 
 
 " I cannot bolt that door, Robert." 
 
 " Very well," said the doctor; "I shall send 
 over a man to sleep here after this one of my
 
 278 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 nurses. I can spare Eliot, just now, perfectly 
 well; he is on day duty, and likely to be. He is 
 entirely trustworthy, and too well trained to ask 
 for reasons why. You will make up the 
 sofa-bed for him in the library, if you please. 
 He will come over to-morrow night at ten 
 o'clock." 
 
 I offered no protest, indeed, it did not occur 
 to me till to-day that I could, and the doctor 
 left without another word. As he opened the 
 front door, the wind puffed out the compass- 
 candle and left me staring. 
 
 " What should I do without it *? " I thought 
 as I groped up-stairs in the dark. 
 
 November the sixteenth. 
 
 ELIOT came over" at ten o'clock last night, and 
 disappeared from public life in the library sofa- 
 bed. I slid down and unbolted the front door, 
 as usual, and slept as I have not done for weeks 
 not listening, nor quivering. Eliot is so used 
 to watching that he would stir at any sound. 
 
 November the seventeenth. 
 
 TO-DAY the doctor found me grappling with the 
 shipping news a feeble self-delusion. I never 
 knew there was any before, and I might as well 
 be turned afloat on the stock-market. He took
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 279 
 
 the paper from my hand. In his eyes I saw un- 
 fathomable compassion. 
 
 " I will attend to all that," he said. 
 
 " If there should be any wreck ? " I whispered. 
 
 " There is no wreck," answered Robert. " The 
 Marion has arrived in port quite safely." 
 
 " How long have you known this *? " I asked, 
 when my head ceased whirling. 
 
 " About two weeks." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me ? " 
 
 " Would it have done any good *? been any 
 easier *? I tried to choose the lesser pang for you." 
 
 There was nothing to be said. I felt that the 
 misery in my eyes leaned upon the chivalry in 
 his too utterly, too heavily. I turned my face 
 away. 
 
 November the twentieth. 
 
 TOLSTOI says that people should marry in the 
 same way as they die "only when they cannot 
 do otherwise." 
 
 In the main condition of civilized human hap- 
 piness, is there a terrible structural fault ? Is 
 the flaw in the institution of marriage itself? 
 Or is it in the individual *? 
 
 Why did Dana find it impossible to be happy 
 on the terms of married life ? Other men are. 
 . . . But are they ? Is society dancing under 
 a white satin mask the sob or the grimace
 
 280 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 beneath? Is my lot only more crudely or vul- 
 garly expressed than others selected from the 
 general experience a cry instead of a satire ? 
 Dana loved me madly once, dearly after- 
 ward. Why did not the dearness remain when 
 the madness had gone *? Must a man cease to 
 value because he has won ? Is this a racial 
 trait 1 ? Or Dana's trait 1 ? Am I meeting the 
 personal misery *? or the fate of my sex *? Why, 
 when I endured so much, could he bear so 
 little *? How, when I cherished, could he neg- 
 lect *? Why, when my tenderness clung, could 
 his unclasp*? 
 
 Once I was a proud girl. Plainly I should 
 never have become a loving wife. That was a 
 mistranslation of nature. It was the Descent of 
 Woman. If this which has befallen me is Man, 
 not Dana, then some woman of us should lift 
 her voice and warn the women of the world 
 what woe awaits them in the subterfuge of love. 
 Now I remember my dream how I sat in the 
 amphitheater arid saw myself and Dana on the 
 stage, and blamed myself for the excessive part 
 that I played in my tragedy, and the house rose 
 upon me, for it was serried of women, and they 
 said : " You are ours, and of us, forever "; and 
 I cried out upon them : " Then womanhood and 
 manhood are at civil war ! "
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 281 
 
 Why does a woman trust herself to love or 
 to her lover ? Friendship is the safer as it is 
 the saner thing. 
 
 If it is Man, not Dana what then, I say? 
 It is conceivable that the time might come when 
 the Princess in the great Medley of Life should 
 make no feint of battle, to be beaten, poor girl, 
 by all the military laws, but in some later, 
 wiser day should gather her forces, and order her 
 heralds, and proclaim the evolution of her will : 
 " We give you all that history has taught us you 
 can be trusted with our friendship, sirs. For 
 the rest, we do reserve ourselves." 
 
 There is no word from Dana, yet, of any kind. 
 Every one has ceased to speak to me about my 
 husband. 
 
 November the twenty-fourth. 
 
 LAST night a strange thing happened. It was 
 pretty late, as much as half-past eleven, and Eliot 
 had come in and was asleep (or he says he was) in 
 the sofa-bed. I had not slept at all. The tele- 
 phone called sharply I think it was twenty- 
 five minutes to twelve, for the compass-candle 
 showed my watch as I sprang. I got into my 
 old ruby negligee and ran. Eliot, in his nurse's 
 dressing-gown, stood tall and lank in the hall. 
 He had the receiver at his ear. As I flew down 
 the stairs he was saying :
 
 282 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 266 ? Yes, this is 266." 
 
 " Mrs. Herwin's ? Yes. This is Mrs. Her- 
 win's house. Yes, she is at home yes. I will 
 call her." 
 
 " Yes ; Mrs. Herwin is coming. Hold the 
 wire." 
 
 I took the receiver from his hand, and he 
 stepped back. I motioned to him to return to 
 the library. He did so, and I think he shut the 
 door. I said : 
 
 " Who wishes Mrs. Herwin ? " 
 
 There was no reply. I repeated my ques- 
 tion, more loudly and quite distinctly ; but there 
 was no answer. In a kind of nervous fright I 
 rang the Central peremptorily. The night oper- 
 ator, stupid with sleep, was inclined to view the 
 summons in the light of a personal offense. 
 
 " You 've cut me off ! " I cried. " Give me 
 my message." 
 
 The night operator made some inarticulate 
 answer Dana would have called it actionable. 
 He said the baby used actionable language 
 when she cried. 
 
 " Please give me my message ! " I pleaded. 
 " It may be very important. I must have that 
 message. Oh, do give me my message ! "
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 283 
 
 " Great Scott ! " said the night operator. .The 
 night was windy and cold, and the wires sang 
 wildly. As I stood waiting, the noise deepened ; 
 it was as if the electric forces pitted themselves 
 against me, that I should not have the message. 
 I threw the whole power of my voice upon 
 them: 
 
 " Who wants Mrs. Herwin ? Here she is. 
 I am here" I repeated clearly. 
 
 Faint, far, infinitely far, jarred and jagged, like 
 a cry coming from a falling star, it seemed to me 
 as if a voice replied. But what it said I could 
 not hear I do not know. The rage of the wires 
 increased. I called till I was spent. The elec- 
 tric protest, as if hurled from a mighty throat, 
 grew into a roar. It was now impossible to 
 communicate even with our own exchange. 
 The cold drops started upon me I do not 
 know why. I experienced a kind of super- 
 natural fear. 
 
 The library door opened and the nurse 
 stepped out. 
 
 " Come away, Mrs. Herwin," said Eliot, sud- 
 denly. " It is of no use. I will call the doctor." 
 
 "You can't," I protested; "the wires won't 
 work. Listen to that roar ! Horrible ! " I put 
 the receiver to his ear. 
 
 " It does sound ugiy," admitted Eliot. He
 
 284 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 was now dressed, and he put on his hat to go 
 for the doctor. 
 
 "Go back to bed," I said peremptorily. 
 " There is nothing in the world that the doctor 
 can do. Why should you rouse that tired man ? 
 Tell him in the morning." 
 
 " I am not your patient," I maintained, when 
 the nurse hesitated ; " I am your hostess. Go 
 back to bed, Mr. Eliot." 
 
 With no more words, he went. I crawled up- 
 stairs, and lay staring till dawn. The white elec- 
 tric light of the street-lamp that I have always 
 loved, and Dana used to like, flooded the lonely 
 room. The telephone wires raved on the roof 
 of the house, and the banshee suddenly joined 
 them. 
 
 November the twenty-fifth. 
 
 THE doctor was disturbed by the telephone story, 
 but he would not discuss it with me. He and 
 Eliot have been in some sort of consultation, and 
 it is my opinion that Robert went in person to 
 the exchange to-day. It did not occur to me to 
 do as much I am so used to the doctor's 
 thinking of everything. 
 
 "Have you found out where the message 
 came from ? " I asked him suddenly. 
 
 He shook his head. I was so sure, however, 
 he had heard something, that I insisted :
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 285 
 
 " What was it, Robert ? " 
 
 " It was a long-distance call," he said. 
 
 There was no repetition of the call last night. 
 
 November the twenty-seventh. 
 
 LAST night at half-past twelve * I had not slept, 
 but was lying in my old red gown, all ready for 
 any summons the telephone called again, and 
 again I ran. 
 
 This time I was in advance of Eliot ; in fact, 
 the nurse seemed to have slept through the ring- 
 ing of the call-bell, at which I was surprised ; he 
 did not come out of the library, and I answered 
 the call myself. 
 
 The night was as mute as eternity, and the 
 wires were clear and calm. Again, as before, a 
 distant operator asked : 
 
 "Is this 26 6?" 
 
 "This is 26 6." 
 
 " Mrs. Herwin's house *? " 
 
 " It is Mrs. Herwin's house." 
 
 " I wish to speak with Mrs. Herwin." 
 
 " I am Mrs. Herwin." 
 
 A clumsy silence intervened. Then I heard 
 the distant operator say : 
 
 "Here 's your party. Why don't you speak up*?" 
 
 A faint voice feebly uttered an indeterminate 
 sound.
 
 286 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 "Who wants Mrs. Herwin *? 0/6, who are 
 you?" I cried. 
 
 The unsuccessful articulation] struggled and 
 fell feebly from the wire. The distant operator 
 took offense. 
 
 " Why don't you talk, now you 've got your 
 party"? You 've got no more voice than a 
 ghost. Speak up, man, in Heaven's name ! 
 Can't? . . . Mrs. Herwin, the party can't talk. 
 He can't be heard. And he won't talk through 
 me. He seems to be an obstinate party 
 he" 
 
 The distant operator's voice died down. I 
 called, I rang, I threatened, I pleaded. The 
 message was cut off as utterly as the voices of 
 the dead. 
 
 The receiver shook so in my hand that I 
 could not hang it up, and while I was fumbling 
 to do so I felt it taken from me. I said : " Thank 
 you, Eliot." But it was not Eliot. Ashen and 
 stiff, the doctor's face regarded mine. 
 
 " Am .1 too late ? " he asked hoarsely. " Eliot 
 did as well as he could. It took time. Let me 
 come, Mrs. Herwin." 
 
 As I stepped aside for him to take my place 
 at the telephone, I perceived the impassive face 
 of the nurse ; he was shutting the library door 
 to go back to his sofa-bed. What orders had
 
 1 LET ME COME, MRS. HERWIN.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 287 
 
 he received and (I must say admirably) exe- 
 cuted ? 
 
 To leave me to answer the call-bell? To slip 
 out of the window and summon the doctor *? 
 
 Peremptorily, in the professional tone, this 
 order came : 
 
 "Mrs. Herwin, go into the parlor and lie 
 down on the sofa till I call you." 
 
 I obeyed. The doctor stood at the telephone 
 a long time. Fragments of what he was saying 
 fell, but I did not try to gather them. I knew 
 everything would be right, everything would be 
 done, now that he was there. Presently he hung 
 up the receiver and came into the dark room; 
 he had the compass-candle in his hand. 
 
 " I have learned where the call came from," 
 he said in a matter-of-fact tone as if it were 
 hardly worth speaking of. 
 
 I sprang. 
 
 "From a town in Minnesota," proceeded 
 Robert, quietly. " The name is Healer one 
 of those queer Western names." 
 
 I tried to speak, but I do not think I suc- 
 ceeded. I believe I meant to ask if he thought 
 it were a real town, and my dry lips stupidly 
 struggled with the words : " I never heard of such 
 a place " as if that fact bore upon the case at all. 
 
 "I happen to have some professional know-
 
 288 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 ledge of the village," observed the doctor, 
 "though that does n't amount to much. It is 
 near St. Paul this side. St. Paul is about as 
 far as the telephone goes." 
 
 Then I cried out upon him : 
 
 "Oh, is there no way 1 ? Can't you find out 
 anything more ? " 
 
 " I have done my best," said Robert, patiently.
 
 VII 
 
 December the first. 
 
 THERE have been no more telephonic mys- 
 teries; the call-bell hangs mute all night. 
 I think Eliot has been ordered to sleep with his 
 door open. Only the banshee parts her lips, and 
 there are times when she wails from bedtime till 
 breakfast ; usually this happens with a west wind. 
 The doctor is absorbed, and the horizontal lines 
 of anxiety in his forehead are heavily carved. I 
 cannot make out what he is thinking, for I am 
 never told unless he chooses to have me know, 
 while yet, oddly enough, I do not feel at all 
 hurt if he does not tell. It was, in fact, three 
 days after the last midnight summons before I 
 knew that he had succeeded in tracing the first 
 telephone call to its source. The company, it 
 seems, had put every agency at his disposal, and 
 had hunted down this last message. Twelve hun- 
 dred miles between it and me ! It had started 
 from one of the uttermost stations where the blue 
 bell hangs ; beyond which there is no practicable 
 
 289
 
 290 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 conversation between the West and the East. I 
 asked the name of the place. 
 
 " This message came," replied the doctor, 
 " from a pay-station in a drug-store. The name 
 was Pooltiss a queer one, was n't it ? The 
 number was 207 3." 
 
 He did not look at me as he dwelt on these 
 unnecessary details. 
 
 " And the town "? " 
 
 "Omaha."- 
 
 " He may be dying ! " I cried. 
 
 Robert shook his head. 
 
 " Sick ? In trouble ? In need ? Wandering 
 from place to place homeless ! He has gone 
 back, farther West, has n't he *? " 
 
 The doctor did not answer. 
 
 " Or he may be thoughtless. He used so 
 often to say, 4 Oh, I did n't mean anything.' He 
 may not mean anything by this. Or it may not 
 be he at all." 
 
 " Any of these things is possible." 
 
 " He ought to come home to his wife ! " I 
 said below my breath. I have never spoken so 
 before, not even to Robert. But there is some- 
 thing, as I told him once, in the roused pride of 
 a tender woman with which a man must reckon, 
 first or last. Mine battles with my tenderness 
 and plays victor with me now, at this bewil-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 291 
 
 dered time of all times, that when I should 
 have expected myself to melt with love and 
 longing. I feel but little longing for my hus- 
 band, and how much love I will not, must not, 
 dare not, ask myself. The strongest tie between 
 the married is the love of the wife ; I am con- 
 vinced that more marriages are saved from de- 
 struction by this than by any other fact in life. 
 If my love for Dana is perishing whose fault 
 is that *? How has he flung from him the trea- 
 sure that he had'? I who gave him my utter- 
 most, I who made a subject of my sovereign 
 soul before his lightest whim, I who bent my 
 will before his, as if one melted a steel blade in a 
 mighty fire and folded it back upon itself, lay- 
 ing it white and gleaming at his feet, I, 
 Wilderness Girl made Wife, Pride beaten into 
 Love, how, God forgive him, has he treated 
 me? ... 
 
 " He ought to come home to his wife ! " I re- 
 peated aloud. It was as if I were willing the 
 whole world should know what I said. Then I 
 heard my old friend speaking ; his voice seemed 
 to come from a great distance. 
 
 " Be patient, Mama. Be gentle. Believe the 
 best. Wait a little. There may be reasons " 
 
 He turned away from me, halted, came back, 
 and looked at me with wretched, noble eyes.
 
 292 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Love him as long as you can," he said gen- 
 tly. " Try for a while longer. It is worth . . . 
 trying . . . suffering ... to save a married love." 
 
 Before I could answer, he had shut the door 
 and gone. I went up and took hold of the knob, 
 and I am not ashamed to write what I did. I 
 went up and bent my face and put my cheek 
 to the door, where his hand had touched it. 
 
 "You are the best man I ever knew," I 
 thought. 
 
 Later. 
 
 I CANNOT sleep. I have been thinking of the 
 evening when Robert asked me to marry him. 
 It was the first winter that Dana was reading to 
 Father. They were in the library, and Robert and 
 I were in the drawing-room ; and I had on a rose- 
 pink dress with white chiffon, and the slippers 
 matched, and Robert liked the dress. 
 
 To him I |said : " I am fond of you, Robert, 
 but I do not love you. I could never love you 
 so as to marry you. I do not want to be any- 
 body's wife." In my own mind I said : " You 
 are too short. And you are very plain. And 
 you are very old as much as thirty." 
 
 December the second. 
 
 ELIOT does not come any more; I don't know 
 why. He has been suddenly taken away and
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 293 
 
 put on duty elsewhere. The doctor suggested 
 another nurse I think his name was Peterkin; 
 but I objected to Peterkin. 
 
 *' Then," be observed, " you will lock the 
 front door ? " 
 
 I shook my head. Now why, I wonder, did I 
 shake my head? Why, when I feel so about 
 Dana, why, when Dana has treated me so, why 
 do I not bolt the door ? 
 
 I cannot perplex the doctor worse than I puz- 
 zle myself. He has sent our old James over to 
 stay nights here till Eliot is at liberty again. 
 James is quite shocked at sleeping in the library. 
 He never did such a thing in the governor's 
 house. But he calls me Miss Mama, and there 's 
 some comfort in that. I wonder what has be- 
 come of Eliot? 
 
 There have been no more telephone calls, 
 which is convenient, for I am sure the last 
 trumpet would have its hands full if it tried to 
 wake up James. He used to sleep in the coach- 
 house, with four horses trampling beneath. 
 
 So I listen for the telephone. I do not sleep 
 much. 
 
 December the tenth. 
 
 THE telephone continues dumb. I do not be- 
 lieve those calls were from anybody in par- 
 ticular at all; some operator's blunder, most
 
 294 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 likely, as I told the doctor. The doctor made 
 no answer. 
 
 In fact, nothing has happened, and everything 
 has happened, for Robert has gone away on a 
 vacation. He has had no vacation since he 
 started the hospital; all summer he stood by his 
 post, when other men were off. I suppose he 
 does need it. I should not have believed that I 
 would miss the doctor so. 
 
 It is not a frequented part of the river. 
 
 December the thirteenth. 
 
 MARION has a cold, and we have had to send for 
 Dr. Packard. I don't think he understands the 
 child in the least. I wish Robert would come 
 back. I am lost in a hieroglyph. I thought I 
 knew what solitude was; now I perceive that I 
 never had the key to the cipher. I am so lonely 
 that I am frightened. If there were a spot in 
 the world where I could go and hurl myself into 
 space, I think I should do it. I used to have 
 fancies about letting myself out of a window in 
 easterly storms when I was a girl and comfort- 
 able. Now that I am a wife and wretched, a 
 window seems a small outlet. I want something 
 vast and daring a desperate leap into a fathom- 
 less fate. What could be worse than to go on
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 295 
 
 tamely where and as I am? Who will teach 
 me how to escape myself? What philosophy 
 is there for a woman whose whole being has 
 been turned back upon itself, a mighty current 
 dammed, and toppling forbidden in the essence 
 of her nature ? What shall be done for an un- 
 dervalued tenderness? What can friendship 
 offer to a deserted wife ? 
 
 The doctor does not write to me. I suppose, 
 in fact, he is under no obligation to do so. 
 
 December the fourteenth. 
 
 I HAVE had a note from the doctor. It was 
 mailed on the cars somewhere, I could not make 
 out where, and it was so hurriedly written that 
 he forgot to date it. He writes most kindly, 
 most thoughtfully. He begs me to be quiet 
 and brave, not to give up either hope or any- 
 thing else. He is sorry to have to leave me 
 just at this trying time; he will not be gone a 
 day longer than is really necessary, he reminds 
 me with a touching gentleness that he really 
 needed the vacation, for he is pretty tired, and 
 he will write me when he can. If I have any 
 more telephone messages, I am to repeat them 
 to him, in care of the Central Exchange both in 
 New York and in Chicago, as his movements 
 are a little uncertain, and he would not wish to
 
 296 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 be beyond my reach in any emergency. And I 
 am not to feel that he has forgotten my difficul- 
 ties for an hour, but that he is doing the best he 
 can for all concerned. He signs the letter : 
 
 "Faithfully your friend, and Dana's, 
 
 " ROBERT HAZELTON." 
 
 Oh, God bless him, God bless him ! And I 
 don't care if that is "equal to a kiss." Of such 
 is the tenderness that the whole wide world 
 might see and be the better for. The grateful 
 affection of an unhappy woman, indebted above 
 measure to a good, unselfish man, is not a thing 
 to feel ashamed of or to hide. 
 
 December the fifteenth. 
 
 THIS evening the telephone called again. It 
 was quite early, hardly nine o'clock, and James 
 had not come in. Mercibel had been over, but 
 did not stay; it was her evening off duty, and 
 she was on her way to see her children; they 
 live with their grandmother. If I had to board 
 Marion with relatives, and work for my living 
 and hers, I wonder should I be more, or less, 
 unhappy? 
 
 " Sorrow has her elect," Mercibel says. The 
 relativity of trouble is a mystery of which I am 
 just beginning to be aware. The doctor has a
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 297 
 
 paralyzed patient who says her ideal of human 
 happiness is to be able to walk across the room 
 and get her own tooth-brush. (He is curing the 
 patient.) 
 
 My telephone call was from the doctor. It 
 seemed to be a long-distance call, but I could 
 hear his voice quite readily and perfectly his 
 dear voice. Oh, I will be honest with my own 
 soul ! It is a dear voice to me ; there is not a 
 cadence of its quietness and strength which does 
 not hold just so much self-forgetting, me-remem- 
 bering melody. There are certain tones at which 
 my spirits rise like leaves in a strong wind, and 
 seek the skies my poor, disordered, disheart- 
 ened spirits as if they were birds. There are 
 certain others before which every nerve in my soul 
 and body calms and rests. The voice is the man, 
 and Robert's has stood between me and despair 
 (I believe I have said this before, at some time ; 
 whether I have or not, I think it all the 
 time) his voice has stood between me and 
 despair so long that I cannot help loving it. 
 Why need I ? 
 
 He did not say very much by the telephone ; 
 only to ask if I kept well, and Marion, and 
 if I had heard any news that I wished him to 
 know. 
 
 " Do not feel that you are forgotten," he said.
 
 298 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " I shall not be beyond reach of helping you in 
 any emergency." 
 
 " Have courage," he added. " Be hopeful. 
 Better things than you fear may be possible. I 
 am telephoning you to-night to say this. Keep 
 well. Be quiet. Be strong. Be brave." 
 
 His resonant voice reverberates in my ears 
 yet, like a rich Belgian bell. As he shut the 
 wire off, he said comfortably: 
 
 " Expect me home in three or four days." 
 He forgot to tell me where he was telephoning 
 from. 
 
 December the sixteenth. 
 
 TO-DAY the doctor called again from he 
 knows where. There is a snow-storm, and the 
 wires are pneumonic, and roar wildly. I could 
 scarcely make out what he was trying to say, 
 and we had to give the message up. If I under- 
 stood at all correctly, Robert said a singular thing: 
 
 "Pray for one you love" 
 
 No man ever asked me to pray for anything 
 before ; I suppose it never occurred to any per- 
 son that I could be a praying woman. 
 
 Poor little " sumptuous pagan " ! how should 
 she be ? The gods die with the joys, I think ; 
 Christianity must be the religion of patience, of 
 denial ; and I am not patient. 
 
 Pray for one I love? . . . Suppose I tried"?
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 299 
 
 Later. 
 
 I HAVE tried. I do not know how. I think I 
 shall educate my daughter in what George Sand 
 calls " la science de Dieu " ; for she shall not 
 come to eight-and-twenty years with an unculti- 
 vated spiritual nature not so ignorant a per- 
 son as I. 
 
 An hour later. 
 
 PRAY for one I love? . . . Then for whom 
 shall I pray *? Pagan beauty stole my heart and 
 toyed with it, and cast it petulantly down. Pa- 
 tient duty gathered the bruised thing, and cher- 
 ished it, and guarded it gently, from itself and 
 from its guardian. How should a woman pray ? 
 Prayer, I think, must be as honest as love, or 
 joy, or anguish ; it is one of the elemental emo- 
 tions ; it cannot confuse anything, or beguile 
 God. 
 
 Sudden expressions of my husband's face 
 start out upon the paper where I write, like pic- 
 tures which my pen traces against its will. 
 Words that he has spoken scenes that I would 
 perish to forget leap upon me. All the an- 
 guish of this deserted year surges pounding 
 through my arteries ; I can understand how peo- 
 ple die of heartbreak in one great, significant 
 moment of self-revelation. 
 
 Cruelty flung me into the hands of kindness ;
 
 300 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 neglect left me to devotion ; coldness hurled me 
 at the feet of tenderness, a disregarded, under- 
 valued woman; selfishness tossed me where? 
 Into what"? Upon the truest heart, against the 
 noblest nature, that I ever knew. 
 
 Suppose I knelt and tried to pray I could 
 only repeat the Morning Lesson or some of the 
 Collects. Perhaps if I wrote a prayer it would 
 be the most genuine thing possible to me. I 
 found in Father's Greek Testament yesterday 
 this, copied in his own hand, and called " The 
 Prayer of Fenelon": 
 
 Lord, take my heart, for I cannot give it to Thee. And 
 when Thou hast it, keep it, for I would not take it from 
 Thee. And save me in spite of myself, for Christ's sake. 
 Amen. 
 
 December the seventeenth. 
 
 THOU great God ! Invisible ! Almighty ! I am 
 not a religious woman, and I do not know how 
 to express myself, but I will not soil my soul by 
 one uncandid word. Be Thou to me the utter 
 Truth. Then shall my heart utter it, and give 
 Thee back Thyself. 
 
 I am a woman unhappy and perplexed. I 
 have not even the excuse of a great temptation 
 to justify what I feel only a subtle one, like a 
 mist that blurs my vision.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 301 
 
 Thou God ! I do not care so much for any 
 other thing except to do what is right. Teach 
 me where Tightness is ! I am willing to count 
 its price, to pay its cost. I am willing to be 
 very lonely, lonelier than I need to be, if I can 
 be sure of doing right. I am willing to give up 
 the only comfort I have, if I ought to do that. 
 . . . Hear my first prayer, O God ! Dana, 
 Dana, Dana I Wherever in this wide world my 
 poor husband is I pray for him ! If he is sick, 
 or sinful, if he is in any trouble, if he has for- 
 gotten me, though he should come back and be 
 cruel to me I pray for him, for him I 
 
 December the eighteenth. 
 
 THE doctor has got home. I think he arrived 
 at dusk, but it was late before he came over, 
 nearly ten o'clock. He looked fatigued beyond 
 description, and yet he had a radiance. All the 
 room seemed to shine when he entered it. I 
 had that old feeling that he stood in a stream of 
 light, and it was as if I crossed the current when 
 I moved to take his outstretched hand. There 
 was a solemn elation in his eyes. 
 
 "You have had a good rest!" I cried, "a 
 happy journey ! " 
 
 " A happy journey, yes." Smiling, he studied 
 me as if my too candid face were a Chaldean
 
 302 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 seal. For the first time in my life I felt uncom- 
 fortable before my old friend, and I took refuge 
 in the best of all civilized disguises elaborate 
 frankness. 
 
 *' I missed you, Doctor, ridiculously. I think 
 you ought either never to go away, or else to 
 stay all the time. I have yet to learn to do 
 without you, Robert." 
 
 " All that will take care of itself," said Robert, 
 gently. " There are first that shall be last. And 
 I am glad that you missed me, too. It harmed 
 nobody, and it touches me." 
 
 If Robert's face had frosted, or assumed any 
 of the masculine defenses which a commonplace 
 man throws out between himself and a woman 
 whom he is capable of misinterpreting, I think, 
 dear as he is to me, I could have spurned him 
 in my heart. But his comfortable, matter-of-fact 
 words restored the poise of my own nature; 
 the vertigo steadied instantly. By a divination 
 he put me delicately at my ease, like the gentle- 
 man he is. 
 
 We talked awhile quietly. The radiance 
 that I spoke of remained translucent on his face. 
 He said he would come in to-morrow, and ran 
 up and kissed Marion in her crib, and played 
 with Job a little, and then he went away. What 
 was that curious thing he said ? There are first
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 303 
 
 that shall be last? . . . Robert is usually so 
 direct; he is never given to conversational sor- 
 ceries. 
 
 December the nineteenth. 
 
 THE doctor came in this noon. He asked if I 
 could spare James, who is needed in the coach- 
 house, and suggested the objectionable Peterkin 
 as a substitute. I demurred. 
 
 " I saw Eliot about the grounds this morning. 
 If he is at liberty now, why can't I have Eliot ? 
 if you insist on anybody." 
 
 "Eliot is on night duty," replied the doctor. 
 " I thought perhaps Peterkin but never mind. 
 Keep James, if you prefer, by all means." 
 
 Now, penitent, I protested. For Peterkin I 
 now entreated. Peterkin, only Peterkin, could 
 protect my imperiled household or assuage my 
 troubled spirit. But the doctor smiled and 
 shook his head. He did not ask me to abjure 
 my folly and bolt my doors. He has ceased to 
 fret me on this topic. One of the remarkable 
 things about Robert is that he conforms to a 
 weakness as generously as he admires a strong 
 point. He accepts a woman just as she is, and 
 if she does a foolish thing, he takes it as a matter 
 of course, like a symptom. If he had the chance 
 he might cure it, but he never exasperates her 
 by resenting it. I know, when he loved me
 
 304 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 long ago, before I was married, I used to feel 
 that he loved me for my very faults. 
 
 It would be difficult to say how much happier 
 and safer I feel now that the doctor has come 
 back. I have been listening lately at night for 
 the telephone it is impossible to say why. But 
 it has not called again. I dusted all Dana's 
 music to-day. 
 
 December the twentieth; noon. 
 
 THERE was a savage storm last night sleet and 
 snow fighting. James dug my paths before he 
 went to the hospital, and came back after a 
 while, plowing his way over with Father's little 
 old snow-plow and the doctor's white horse. 
 There is quite a clear path all around the tree- 
 house. It makes me feel less shut in and cut 
 off. Mercibel, at the office window, waved her 
 nurse's apron and blew a kiss to me. The doctor 
 will hardly come over, I think. I understand 
 there are some pretty sick patients. There 
 seems to be some agitation at the hospital. The 
 countenance of my father's house has a tense 
 expression, as if it concealed drama as it does, 
 as it must. All the tragedy of all that disabled 
 and disordered life crowds crushing upon the 
 superintendent. How seldom this occurs to me ! 
 I am engrossed in my own drama. I think I 
 must be yet very young.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 305 
 
 The telephone wires are furred with sleet and 
 sag heavily, but still hold their thin lips between 
 myself and the world ; between myself and the 
 watchful, patient, unrewarded kindness which 
 has never failed me anywhere. 
 
 December the twenty-first. 
 AN extraordinary thing has happened. 
 
 The storm has been a wild caprice, lulling 
 and rousing without any visible reason ; but by 
 mid-afternoon the snow ceased sullenly. There 
 was no sun, but a vicious wind, and a stinging 
 powder filled the air. James came over and 
 cleared out all my paths again, and brought the 
 doctor's remembrances, and was I quite com- 
 fortable ? or did I need anything that he could 
 do? The doctor did not telephone. Mercibel 
 did once or twice, but I thought her absent- 
 minded, for some reason. 
 
 After dinner, between half-past seven and 
 eight o'clock, the ghost of the Wilderness Girl 
 got me, for I have stayed indoors too long. I 
 put myself into rubber boots and waterproof, 
 pulled the hood over my head, and ran out. A 
 young moon wandered somewhere in a waste of 
 clouds, but it seemed to me only to make every- 
 thing darker; all the shadows of the shrubbery 
 crouched like creatures about to spring, and the
 
 306 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 tree-house stood in such a jungle of blackness 
 that I was afraid of it. I tramped about for a 
 while, running up and down the paths, and 
 crunching the snow, as children do. But I did 
 not stay long; I could not have told why, but 
 I was definitely afraid. I came back and into 
 the house, threw off my waterproof, but, I don't 
 know for what reason, did not remove my rub- 
 ber boots. I stood in the hall, by the register, 
 warming my feet. As I did this, I thought the 
 handle of the front door turned. 
 
 " It is the doctor," I said. But it was not the 
 doctor, and the door did not open. I started 
 to call Job, but he was in the kitchen with 
 Luella. At this moment the banshee up in my 
 room began to wail, and made such a noise that 
 I called up to Ellen to stifle her with a handker- 
 chief. Ellen, having obeyed me, came to the 
 balusters over my head, and said that Marion 
 would not go to sleep without Dombey, and 
 should she give in to such as that"? I answered: 
 "Oh, she may have Dombey; I '11 get him 
 and toss him up to you," and I went into the 
 library for the doll. The shades were not drawn 
 Dana never liked to have them. When I 
 stooped to pick up Dombey, I saw upon the 
 window-sill the fingers of a man's hand. 
 
 I stood quite still, with Dombey in my arms,
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 307 
 
 and looked at the window. The hand slid, 
 finger by finger, and slipped away. It reminded 
 me of the hand I saw in my dream of the 
 Uruguay dungeon, and it was a left hand, too; 
 but it had no ring. I threw on my waterproof 
 unlatched the front door, and opened it wide. 
 
 " At last," I thought, " we have the burglar." 
 It did not occur to me to be afraid. Such a 
 sense of wrong overtook me, the rage of the 
 home against its violator, that I cared for nothing 
 but to defy the fellow. I understand now, per- 
 fectly, how small women, timid ones, have 
 sprung upon tramps and thieves, and choked 
 them and held them till the neighbors came. By 
 this time Job had begun to growl from the 
 kitchen, and Luella had let him out. I ran 
 down the steps and out into the snow, and Job met 
 me at the corner of the house. The dog moved 
 stealthily ; he did not bark. 
 
 "Whoever you are," I cried, "make your 
 errand known, or leave my house ! " 
 
 There was no person to be seen. I pushed 
 on toward the tree-house. There, cringing, 
 blotted into the jungle of shadows, I perceived, 
 or I thought I did, the figure of a man. It was 
 a pitiable figure, poor and outcast. 
 
 " Who are you," I said more gently, " and 
 what do you want ? "
 
 308 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 There was no reply, and I stood, uncertain 
 what to do. The thin young moon at this 
 moment dived into a sea of clouds, and when 
 she emerged the man had gone. I called to 
 Job, but he was nowhere to be seen. I came 
 back into the house and shut the door. From 
 long habit, even then I did not bolt it. I sat 
 down by the register, shivering and drying my 
 wet skirts. It did not occur to me to telephone 
 the doctor what had happened, or, if it did, I 
 thought I would spare him. He has care enough, 
 and I knew James would be over soon. It was 
 by then perhaps half-past eight o'clock. Ellen 
 came down and asked me what had happened. 
 " Nothing," I said. " Go back to Marion." 
 " I won't do, without the boy-doll," argued 
 Ellen, studying me furtively. I now perceived 
 that the old servant was distinctly scared, and 
 also that I still held Dombey affectionately 
 clasped to my heart. I gave her the doll, and 
 she went up-stairs reluctantly. When she had 
 gone, I slid to the front door and opened it, 
 and looked out and about. No person was 
 to be seen. There was now moon enough to 
 show the tree-house clearly ; it was quite empty. 
 I shut the door and came back, and sat down by 
 the hall register again. I had forgotten about 
 Job.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 309 
 
 I was sitting there when the door opened 
 in earnest, swiftly though softly, and the doctor 
 entered. To my last hour I shall not be able to 
 forget the expression of his face. 
 
 " You have had a fright ! " he began. " Tell 
 me all about it quickly." 
 
 I now saw Eliot behind the doctor, and 
 James, and Peterkin a good match between 
 them all for a gang of housebreakers. 
 
 " How in the world did you know ? " I par- 
 ried foolishly. 
 
 Robert interrupted me with real impatience. 
 I thought, for the instant, he would have liked 
 to shake me but not hard. 
 
 " Speak, can't you ? " he cried. " There is no 
 time to lose. Did he annoy you ? Did you 
 see the man *? " 
 
 I collected myself, and told him all there was 
 to tell. It was little enough, and seemed to dis- 
 appoint him. The two nurses had by this time 
 vanished, directed, I thought, by a single up- 
 ward motion of the superintendent's heavy eyelids. 
 
 " What do you say you said," demanded the 
 doctor, "when you first opened the door*?" 
 
 " I said : ' Whoever you are, make your errand 
 known, or leave my house' " 
 
 The doctor turned the high collar of his fur- 
 lined coat, half concealing his averted face.
 
 310 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Go up to bed," he said. " Peterkin will 
 sleep here to-night. I have need of James. If 
 you are disturbed again, call me instantly, Marna. 
 Do you understand ? " 
 
 "Don't be cross to me, Doctor," I quavered 
 childishly. " I will do whatever you say." 
 
 He went, and Peterkin came. I am too ex- 
 cited to sleep, and so I write. Job has but just 
 come in. He is wet through, and shivers vio- 
 lently. He must have been out a long time. 
 
 December the twenty-second. ' 
 
 OUR tramp has not done us the honor again, 
 and nothing whatever has happened. In fact, 
 life is more than commonly dull, for I took cold 
 that night in the snow, and am cherishing a sore 
 throat in unexampled obscurity ; the doctor hav- 
 ing gone away. So, I surmise, has Eliot. So, I 
 think, has Peterkin. James appears every night 
 as before, only now very early, by six o'clock. 
 Mercibel comes over and stays through the day 
 I suppose because I have a sore throat; at all 
 events, those seem to be her orders. She an- 
 swers the telephone, which rings occasionally. 
 Now and then she seems to have messages from 
 the doctor, who inquires for me, with his remem- 
 brances. He does not ask me to come to the 
 telephone. Mercibel says he says I am to be
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 311 
 
 very careful of this throat, and not to strain my 
 voice. I am trying to finish Marion's Christmas 
 presents chiefly am I dressing a new wife for 
 Dombey. I have got her a doll's house from 
 her father, for I could not have her think he had 
 forgotten to send her anything. I am very 
 lonely. I can't see why the doctor should have 
 to go away so soon again. Mercibel says it is a 
 professional errand and he could not help it. I 
 miss him cruelly I am quite demoralized by 
 missing him ; I may as well own to this as to 
 experience it. 
 
 What will become of me if Robert is so necessary 
 to me as this ? . . . 
 
 A woman may be made very unhappy, I find, 
 for the sake of a man whom she does not love, 
 whom she must not love. Friendship takes 
 hold of women more seriously than of men, I 
 think. Is it a disorder to which we are tempera- 
 mentally more subject? 
 
 December the twenty-third. 
 
 THE doctor has come home again. He called 
 at once, very early this morning, to see about my 
 throat. I was startled at his appearance ; he 
 must have had a hard trip. But yet he has 
 happy eyes. As I watched them I felt that 
 mine might safely say anything, for it was as if
 
 312 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 he did not exactly see me. He talked more 
 than usual. He spoke of Dana, of his absence 
 and silence, and of what I had endured. 
 
 " You have behaved like a queen at her exe- 
 cution," he said. He talked about my husband 
 for quite a while. My thoughts were of him, but 
 his were of Dana. But I was so glad he had 
 come back that nothing troubled me. Job sat 
 on my lap and listened with a portentous solem- 
 nity to our conversation ; there are times when 
 that dog seems like a brownie. Job has been 
 restless and unhappy these last few days; he 
 sleeps on the foot of my bed, and starts fre- 
 quently, and has bad dreams and little York- 
 shire nightmares out of which I have to wake 
 him up and reassure him. 
 
 December the twenty-fourth; afternoon. 
 MARION hit the Parthenon frieze behind the 
 library sofa a hard whack with Banny Doodle, 
 and the paper broke away ; the paste had dried, 
 and the frieze has hung loosely for a long time. 
 I went up to fix it, and I saw the Landseer dogs 
 that I had forgotten about David and Dora. 
 
 Then I remembered when I first put them on 
 the bruise in the calcimine, and how Dana made 
 fun of me, and how he helped me to put the 
 frieze up. I thought how he teased Job by
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 313 
 
 patting David and Dora, and how Job snarled 
 with jealousy and sprang at the picture, and 
 how Dana laughed out nobody ever had such 
 a laugh as Dana. How happy was I ! How 
 dear was he ! And we did love each other 
 God knows. 
 
 "Pity Mommer!" cooed Marion behind me. 
 
 "Go and get Job," I commanded wildly, for 
 I could not have the child behold my overthrow. 
 
 Something beat about me like a whirlwind 
 rising from the woman's God knows where. 
 ... I have tried to forget, I have tried to for- 
 get! not to suffer, not to feel, to divert my 
 soul, to supplant Almighty Love by something 
 else; and I thought I had succeeded, but I had 
 climbed a ladder which rested in the air and 
 now, in a moment, it toppled with me. And 
 David and Dora had brought it down . . . that 
 little thing, that little foolish dear home thing, 
 that Dana and I had done, and laughed about, 
 together. 
 
 " Why don't you do as I bid you ? " I de- 
 manded, crossly enough, of Marion. " Why 
 don't you go for Job *? " 
 
 My daughter put up a grieved lip. 
 
 "Job came his own self. And I fink I will 
 go make a call on Ellen." Holding her little 
 head haughtily, my baby scornfully left me.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Ashamed, I turned to follow her, and hurried a 
 little, and so stumbled over something in the 
 hall and it was Dana's old blue velveteen 
 coat. Job was curled up on it, fixed and watch- 
 ful. How he had found it, why he had brought 
 it, only Job can say. It was plain that he had 
 meant to bring the coat to me, and, laboriously 
 dragging it, had wavered in his purpose at the 
 foot of the stairs. Perhaps a glimpse of David 
 and Dora had arrested his inner motive; one 
 never can tell : a highly organized dog is very 
 complex. 
 
 Commending Job and comforting Marion, I 
 took the coat and came up with it into Dana's 
 room, and locked the doors; and I thought I 
 would hang the coat up first but oh, the touch 
 of it, the touch of it ! . . . 
 
 At first I only laid my cheek upon it, for I 
 dared no more. But remembrance has her 
 Judgment Day, when the books are opened. 
 And the illuminated text of married love which 
 I have sealed with seven seals stared at me from 
 silver and from crimson pages and there was 
 no more power in me to close the book. 
 
 I caught my husband's coat to my heart, and 
 clasped it, and kissed it, and then I kissed it 
 again oh, and again, till the tears stopped the 
 kisses; and when the sobs came, I felt that some-
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 315 
 
 thing finer than reason was saved in me. I 
 threw myself on Dana's bed, and sunk my face 
 in the coat, and stroked it. 
 
 I thought of everything that I had tried to forget, 
 and I forgot everything that I had been remem- 
 bering. I got down from the bed, and knelt, 
 with my face in the coat, and lifted my hands, 
 and thought I would try to pray again; but all I 
 could say was : 
 
 For we did love each other and I am his 
 wife. All the awful power of the marriage tie 
 closed about me, its relentlessness, its precious- 
 ness, not to be escaped. The dead joys got 
 out of their graves and looked upon me. I 
 thought of all that faith and sacredness, and of 
 the honor in which we cherished it. I thought 
 how I had barred these things from my heart be- 
 cause it was broken and so it could not hold them. 
 
 Who said: "It is worth trying . . . suffering 
 . . . to save a married love"? That must 
 have been Robert. I got up from my knees 
 and walked to and fro across my husband's 
 room. I went to the window and drew his 
 curtains and looked out at his stars. And, by 
 the holy name of the happiest hour that we had 
 ever known, I charged myself with a vow, for 
 Dana's sake.
 
 316 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 As soon as I was something composed, I sent 
 for the doctor so urgently that he came at once. 
 Marion had gone to bed, and the library was 
 littered with her Christmas things. I was tying 
 up Dombey's second wife in silver paper with a 
 crimson ribbon. 
 
 " Let me help you," said Robert, directly. He 
 took the doll, and tied the package neatly; in fact, 
 he saw that my fingers trembled so I could not do it. 
 
 Abruptly I began : 
 
 "Doctor, I am going to find my husband. I 
 shall take the child and start." 
 
 " Where are you going *? " 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " At once to-morrow, I think." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " He may need me who knows ? " 
 
 *' I," said Robert, gravely. 
 
 I pushed the second wife into the doll's house, 
 anyhow, and she slid out into the doctor's lap. 
 He picked her up, and put her carefully some- 
 where, before he spoke again. 
 
 " Tired of trusting me, Mama ? " 
 
 Then I said: "I must act for myself. I 
 have borne all I can. If he is alive, I will find 
 him. If he is dead ''
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 317 
 
 " Would you be willing," interrupted Robert, 
 gently, "to wait a little perhaps two or three 
 days'? I can advise you better if you give me 
 a little time. I have some pretty sick patients 
 just now," he added wearily, " and such a step 
 would be very important. You would need 
 advice." 
 
 " I should need you^ I grant you ! " I cried out 
 cruelly. " I can't even love my own husband 
 without your help I have come to that." 
 
 " Mama ! " pleaded Robert, in a voice that 
 wrung my heart. 
 
 I took one look at his face, and then some- 
 thing in me gave way suddenly, and I slid to 
 the hassock on the floor below me, and what 
 might I have done? I cannot tell. I do not 
 know. Put my head upon his knee, like the 
 child that I sometimes seem to myself to have 
 been to him, and so sobbed out the "Forgive 
 me, Robert!" which came surging to my lips'? 
 I do not know. I cannot tell. Instantly he had 
 lifted me to my feet. 
 
 " You are tired out," he said. " Go up to bed 
 at once. Sleep if you can. Don't try to talk to 
 me. I understand. Child, I understand you 
 better than you do yourself. I know ... I 
 know how you love your husband ; better than 
 any man of us is apt to be loved."
 
 318 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " I will see you to-morrow," he added in his 
 usual manner. " We will talk everything over. 
 Trust me till then." 
 
 " I will trust you till I am dead, and after," I 
 answered him. We shook hands as if nothing 
 had happened. At the door, he turned and re- 
 garded me mournfully and something solemnly, 
 I thought as if the man were looking his last 
 upon some dear and sacred privilege. 
 
 "If I can keep trustworthy " he said; 
 and so he shut the door. 
 
 Later. 
 
 I HAPPENED on this, to-day, that Stevenson said 
 of himself: " I came about like a well-handled 
 ship. There stood at the wheel that unknown 
 steersman whom we call God." 
 
 January the fifteenth. 
 
 UNTIL this I have had no moments. Now, 
 while my patient is sleeping naturally, my heart 
 draws its first breath. It will rest me more to 
 write than to sleep. 
 
 I see that my record broke asunder abruptly 
 on Christmas eve, and with the doctor's call. 
 
 I slept that night, by God's good grace, though 
 no one could have been more surprised at this 
 fact than myself. I dreamed that Marion and I 
 started out together on Christmas day to find
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 319 
 
 her father, and that we went to Uruguay, and 
 crossed the swamp with the log and the snake, 
 and Dana was in the dungeon with the crosses, 
 and he put up his left hand with the wedding- 
 ring upon it, and so I knew him ; and I tore 
 away the bars, for they were old and rusty, and 
 set him free. And he said I was dreaming 
 what he said when Marion waked me by slapping 
 me with Dombey's second wife. 
 
 The day went wildly to me. It was not a 
 pleasant day, but snowed a little and blew more. 
 The wind was savage, and the sky frowned. 
 The doctor did not come over, though Mercibel 
 did. Now and then I got away from Marion's 
 Christmas litter, and went up-stairs and put things 
 into bags, at random. I think my idea was to 
 start as soon as the doctor came to what place, 
 to what end, I knew no more than the child. 
 My head whirled. I kept repeating : 
 
 " I will find my husband." 
 
 In the afternoon I telephoned the doctor im- 
 patiently, but he was not in. As it grew to be 
 dusk, everything looked differently to me, and I 
 felt suddenly weakened in soul and body, like a 
 person spent by a delirium, and I thought 
 
 " I can never find him without Robert. I 
 must wait for Robert." 
 
 But Robert did not come over. Marion and
 
 320 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 I had our supper, and Luella went out; but 
 Ellen stayed, and James came over; Peterkin 
 did not, so I was alone with my father's old 
 servants. 
 
 It still snowed fitfully, not steadily nor much. 
 There was some sleet, and it rapped on the win- 
 dows like little knuckles. The banshee did not 
 cry, and, except for the sleet, there was not any 
 sound. Marion had gone to bed, but Job was 
 playing with his rubber chicken. The chicken 
 had a gamboge head, and Job had cut its throat 
 already. I sat dully watching Job and the 
 chicken. He dropped the chicken while I did 
 this, and went to the door. I said : 
 
 " Oh, you don't want to go out again so soon, 
 Job ; it 's snowing. " But the dog insisted. I let 
 him out, and came back and sat down again. I 
 picked up Dombey's second wife, and Dombey, 
 and Banny Doodle, and put them all in the 
 doll's house, arranging them childishly, as if I 
 had been a little girl myself. 
 
 " We are all dolls," I thought, " and fate plays 
 with us." I added Job's chicken to the collec- 
 tion, stupidly. 
 
 I went out into the hall and stood by the 
 register, and called up to Ellen to see if Marion 
 were happy; but Ellen had shut the nursery 
 door, for the night was cold, and so she did not
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 321 
 
 hear me. I was quite alone when Job scratched 
 on the front door to be let in. 
 
 I opened the door immediately, but the dog 
 did not come in. He ran off again into the 
 snow, and I shut the door again. Presently I 
 heard him scratching at the door once more, and 
 this time he whined impatiently. Once more I 
 opened the door, and spoke to him rather sharply: 
 
 " Don't keep me waiting here ! Come in, if 
 you are coming at all ! " 
 
 But Job ran down the steps and off. I thought 
 of our tramp, but I felt no fear of any kind, un- 
 less that some one should steal Job, and I did 
 not shut the door. I stood still in the hall and 
 called the dog more gently : 
 
 " Come right in, Dear. Don't stay out in the 
 storm any longer ! " 
 
 As I spoke, the dog leaped up the steps, shout- 
 ing wildly ; ran to me and looked back ; sprang 
 to my arms, kissed me, and ran back. With- 
 out hesitation I followed Job, and stepped out 
 into the light, fresh snow. 
 
 At the foot of the steps a man leaned against 
 the piazza pillar, heavily. He did not start 
 when he saw me; and Job was in his arms. 
 The man regarded me steadily. 
 
 " In God's name," I cried out upon him, " who 
 are you ? "
 
 322 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Well," he said, " Job knows, if you don't." 
 
 I did not answer, for I did not dare. I felt 
 that the wrong word would pull the whirling 
 world crashing on my head. I went up to the 
 man, and held out my hand, and led him up the 
 steps, and the light smote his face, and it was 
 my husband's face. 
 
 " I did n't know," he said timidly, " whether 
 you 'd want me back or not." 
 
 Without a word, I led him into the house 
 and shut the door behind him. I don't know 
 why I did it, but I slid the key, and put it in 
 my pocket. He stood still, like a child or a 
 sick person, just where I left him. The snow 
 dripped from his beard. I took off his hat, and 
 then, in the full gas-light, I saw his face . . . the 
 havoc on it : shame, disease, despair, and des- 
 olation oh, desolation worse, by all the agonies, 
 than mine ! 
 
 " I was a darn fool to leave you, Marna." he 
 said, just as I had heard him say it in my dream. 
 *' I can't stand it any longer. I thought I 'd 
 come in awhile even if you did n't want to 
 keep me." 
 
 " What *? You don't say very much, I no- 
 tice. Well, I don't blame you, Marna." 
 
 " Don't try, Marna if it comes so hard as 
 that. Don't stand on ceremony. I 'd rather
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 323 
 
 you did n't make such an effort to be glad to 
 see a fellow. It does n't matter very much. I 
 can go away again." 
 
 He turned his shattered face and tottered 
 toward the door. I slid between him and it, 
 and stretched out my hands. 
 
 " I 'm pretty wet," he said uncertainly. 
 
 I went straight up to him and clasped him to 
 my heart, and his shaking arms closed fast 
 about me. 
 
 WHEN I lifted my face, the doctor was there, and 
 my father's old servants. Dana did not speak to 
 any of them ; he looked about passively. 
 
 "Get off his wet things," said the doctor; and 
 James came up to help us. It did not occur to 
 me till afterward to wonder how Robert got 
 into the house, for I had the front-door key in 
 my pocket. Nothing occurred to me. Dana 
 had come home. 
 
 We led him into the library and up to the 
 fire, and the doctor rolled up the Morris chair 
 for him. I now saw for the first time that my 
 husband was a very sick man. He had a singu- 
 lar expression. His eyes looked as if they had 
 been varnished. He looked around the room, 
 noticed the Christmas clutter, the doll's house 
 and the dolls, and the Parthenon frieze which
 
 324 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 he had helped me to paste over David and 
 Dora. 
 
 " It all looks so natural," he said pitifully. 
 All this while he kept hold of my hand. Job 
 came up quietly, and got into his lap. We 
 were standing just so the doctor on the other 
 side of him, and Ellen and James behind when 
 Marion melted into the room. Her little bare 
 feet had made no sound upon the padded stairs, 
 and she startled us all. Job jumped down from 
 Dana's lap, and went and brought his chicken to 
 his master. No one spoke. Her father turned his 
 head slowly, and by the time that he saw the little 
 girl, she was quite near him. For an instant I 
 think she was frightened ; she backed off, wide- 
 eyed and wondering, but advanced again, and 
 leaned up, in her little white night-gown, against 
 his knee. 
 
 " Why, she remembers me ! " he whispered. 
 His face worked; he hid it on the child's soft 
 head and wept aloud. 
 
 " Pity Popper ! " said Marion, distinctly. She 
 put up both her hands and stroked his hollow 
 cheeks. 
 
 WE got him up-stairs as soon as we could, the 
 doctor and I into his own room and his own 
 bed. Ellen had warmed the sheets, and every-
 
 "'PITY POPPER!' SAID MARION, DISTINCTLY.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 325 
 
 thing was ready, as if he had been expected, or 
 as if he had never been away. I managed to 
 get in and light his candle, and fix all his little 
 things as he used to like them. He looked at 
 everything pathetically, but he did not speak. 
 He had grown strangely very weak, I thought, 
 and panted for his breath. His forehead went a 
 sudden deadly color which terrified me, and I 
 ran and sat on the bed beside him, and took 
 him in my arms. His sunken face fell upon my 
 breast. 
 
 "You 're a dear old girl!" he said. 
 
 " I think," said the doctor, unexpectedly, " that 
 you had better leave him to us for a while." 
 
 And suddenly I saw that Eliot was in the 
 room. But I did not move. 
 
 "Go down-stairs, Mrs. Herwin," commanded 
 Dr. Hazelton, peremptorily. 
 
 Wondering and pondering, I obeyed. 
 
 When they called me back, Dana was asleep. 
 It was a dense sleep, and he did not rouse as I 
 sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. 
 His gleaming pallor was replaced by a stagnant, 
 crimson color that I liked no better. 
 
 " Has he a fever ? " I whispered. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Are n't you going to tell me what ails 
 him ? "
 
 326 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Certainly I am." 
 
 "What is it, Doctor?" 
 
 " Morphine" He drew up Dana's sleeve and 
 showed me his poor marred arm. Dana did 
 not stir as the doctor gently replaced the sleeve.
 
 VIII 
 
 COME down-stairs," said Robert, " and I will 
 tell you everything." 
 
 I looked at Dana and shook my head. 
 
 " He will not miss you," urged the doctor. 
 " He will know nothing more till it is time for 
 the next dose." 
 
 I asked when that would be. 
 
 "At three in the morning. Eliot will attend 
 to that. Leave him with Eliot; trust him en- 
 tirely to Eliot. He has had the care of him for 
 some time." 
 
 I don't think I uttered a word ; I scarcely ex- 
 perienced surprise. It seemed, now, that any- 
 thing might happen, or might have happened. 
 I followed Robert down-stairs in silence, and he 
 shut the library door. 
 
 He bade me lie down upon the lounge, " be- 
 cause I needed all my strength for what was 
 before me now," and he covered me carefully 
 with the afghan, and drew up the Morris chair 
 opposite me, and began at once. It was still 
 
 327
 
 328 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 early, scarcely nine o'clock, and we talked two 
 hours evading nothing, facing everything. 
 
 He began by telling me how he had at times 
 suspected, before Dana went to Uruguay, that he 
 was forming the morphine habit. 
 
 " But he was not my patient ; I never had his 
 confidence. The early symptoms are elusive; I 
 was never sure. I could scarcely create a theory; 
 I might have wronged him by the suspicion ; I 
 decided to keep it to myself." 
 
 " So you sent him atropine 3 X ! " I cried. Curi- 
 ously, my mind fastened itself upon this unim- 
 portant detail. It seemed to me as if the 
 important ones would come faster than I could 
 bear them. As they did as they did ! 
 
 I tried to listen as quietly as he tried to speak; 
 but it was not easy for either; and Robert, I 
 could see, was greatly worn with all that he had 
 endured for Dana's sake, and mine. My mind 
 ran ahead of his, as a woman's mind does with 
 a man's, and I would take loops in the mystery 
 which he was unraveling slowly, and give the 
 snarl a tear. I would say : 
 
 "Yes, yes! So those telephone messages 
 were from him ? I see, I see. 
 
 " And you traced him by them *? It was you 
 who found Dana ! It was you who brought my 
 husband back to me."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 329 
 
 Then, when I had collected myself a little: 
 "And you have done it all in these two weeks!" 
 
 " On the contrary," replied the doctor, " I 
 have had Mr. Herwin's movements watched 
 ever since he put himself under the suspicion of 
 having deserted you. He was met by my agents 
 when the Marion landed . . . Did you suppose I 
 was sitting with my hands folded all that while ? 
 while your husband, jjwr husband There was 
 nobody else to do it for you. Your father 
 would have . . . We lost him between San Fran- 
 cisco and St. Paul ; and that was the hardest part 
 of it." 
 
 "Do you mean " I began. "Do you 
 mean " 
 
 " Never mind what I mean." 
 
 " Your nurses ? Eliot ? Peterkin ? " 
 
 "Eliot and Peterkin and It does not 
 signify who, does it ? " 
 
 " I will not interrupt you again, Robert," I 
 said humbly. " Tell it in your own way." 
 
 So he told it all, and in his own way; simple, 
 direct, modest, manly Robert's way. He told 
 me how he had happened to know that there 
 was a sanatorium in that little Western town 
 with the queer name, Healer; and how he had 
 telephoned by the longest long-distance wires 
 in the land half across the continent, and
 
 330 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 so traced Dana a poor, wretched, outcast 
 patient in that place ; how he had despatched 
 Eliot, and how he himself had followed; how 
 Dana had left the sanatorium when Eliot reached 
 it, and wandered back to Omaha and God knows 
 where ; how they pursued and how he eluded ; 
 how they tracked him down at Chicago my 
 poor Dana in an opium den, and brought him 
 with them ; for he came willingly with Robert, 
 making only one condition. 
 
 " Take me to your hospital and treat me till 
 I am fit to see my wife," entreated Dana. " I 
 will not go to her as I am." 
 
 " So I did as he asked," said Robert. " He 
 would not come on any other terms. My way 
 would have been to bring him straight to you 
 there were so many risks. As it was, . . . when 
 he escaped ... I should never have forgiven my- 
 self nor you me. I can't talk of it! not yet." 
 
 Nor can I think of it not yet. 
 
 For my Dana was the only patient who ever 
 escaped the superintendent's guards; and when I 
 think how he had come straight to me, and 
 wandered about his own home that night, and 
 did not dare come in and how I saw him in 
 the tree-house, outcast and despairing, and did 
 not know and he might never have come 
 back and yet I did not know and how I
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 331 
 
 had hardened my heart against him all that 
 while, for I did not know 
 
 My poor boy had fled to get the liberty of his 
 slavery. And Robert tracked him down again ; 
 he was buying morphine in a poor place, some 
 drug-store at the north end of the city. There, on 
 the evening of the second day, Dana felt a hand 
 upon his arm. And he did not look up, but 
 said: " That you, Hazelton ? Well, I 'm glad 
 of it." And again he came with the doctor 
 willingly, but this time without conditions, for 
 he felt himself a beaten man. So he gave him- 
 self into Robert's hands, reserving nothing; and 
 Robert brought him to the hospital, and treated 
 him and battled with him and conquered him 
 for those two days. And on Christmas evening 
 suddenly they gave Dana his liberty, to see what 
 use he would make of it; but it was a trap, for 
 he had no liberty, all the exits of the hospital 
 and the grounds being guarded, and the super- 
 intendent shadowing his every step. 
 
 And my poor boy came straight to me; but he 
 was afraid to make himself known, so he loitered 
 in the snow, uncertain and ashamed, till Job 
 went out and found him. 
 
 WHEN we had touched upon these things, giving 
 nervous question and answer, talking rapidly
 
 332 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 and concisely, like people who sketch but the 
 table of contents of a long, unfinished volume, 
 the doctor rose abruptly and went up to see 
 Dana. I begged leave to go, but he objected, 
 and I yielded I found that I must. I remem- 
 bered what I had said to him in my foolish 
 anger : " I can't even love my own husband with- 
 out your help, it seems; I have come to that." 
 Now I could not even see my husband without 
 his permission; it had come to that. Robert 
 came down again, in a few minutes, with shining 
 eyes. 
 
 "He is doing remarkably well," he said. "But 
 we had better finish talking while we can. I 
 have important things to say to you, Marna. 
 . . . Are you comfortable *? Resting *? Be quiet. 
 Do not agitate yourself. You are going to need 
 all your strength." 
 
 " Before you begin," I said, " tell me this : 
 what has become of my husband's wedding- 
 ring"? It is gone." 
 
 " I don't think you will be any happier to 
 know." 
 
 " Do you know ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Was it was it " 
 
 " Pawned in Chicago in that place where we 
 found him."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 333 
 
 " This is the worst ? " 
 
 " So far as I know, it is the worst." 
 
 "Very well, Robert. There was no one 
 else ? " 
 
 " It is my belief that there has been no one 
 else. The perils of his condition are not that 
 way, and I have made some inquiries." 
 
 " Thank you, Robert," I said humbly, as if it 
 were his doing. " Now I will listen to you." 
 
 Then he began to talk to me very gravely, 
 very kindly, with the terrible frankness of the 
 physician, and the merciful gentleness of my old 
 friend. He spoke in short sentences, something 
 like these : 
 
 " I have brought your husband back to you, 
 but I have not saved him. I do not even know 
 that I can. That depends as much on you as 
 on me, and more on the patient than on either 
 of us. In this case he has taken the drug hypo- 
 dermically, the most difficult form of the habit 
 to cure, as it is the easiest and subtlest to create. 
 There are several ways of treating the morphine 
 habit. A man may have the drug taken away 
 from him abruptly; he may recover, and he 
 may not. He may be put upon substitute ano- 
 dynes ; they may serve, and they may fail. He 
 may be treated by a process of gradual reduction, 
 by lessening the drug as fast as the diminution
 
 334 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 can be borne; he may be rehabilitated by this 
 process, or he may not. I shall adopt this last 
 method in treating Mr. Herwin. If I were a 
 stranger to him, I might not, necessarily, do so. 
 Since I know him, I select it as being, in my 
 opinion, the only method for him. It is the 
 slowest, but the safest. It will mean a great deal 
 that you do not understand, Marna. The ex- 
 periment will probably last a year, even if it is 
 successful. He must suffer, and so will you. 
 He must be guarded like a perishing soul and 
 so interpreted. He must be cherished and 
 loved above all, he must be borne with per- 
 fectly; he must be loved perfectly. It will not 
 do to offer him any half measure not to feel to 
 him doubtfully, or critically, or with reservations. 
 You will need all the patience, all the purpose, 
 of your nature. You will need I was going 
 to say that you will need the infinite qualities. 
 Forgive everything. Forget all you can. Bear 
 anything. Trust. Hope. Endure. Something 
 depends on me, but everything on you. Be- 
 tween us we may save him. I can promise you 
 nothing, but I will do my best; and if I fail, you 
 will forgive me, won't you, Marna? . . . 
 
 "Obey me without question, if you expect him 
 to stand any chance at all. Follow every order. 
 Raise no querulous doubts. Work with me as
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 335 
 
 if we were one being for Dana's sake. I shall 
 regulate every detail of your life and his tell 
 you when to devote yourself to him, when to 
 leave him to nurses, how to do this, when not 
 to do that. I shall seem a tyrant to you, often 
 mysterious, sometimes cold. But there is no 
 other chance. Do you think you can trust 
 me?" 
 
 Then I said : " If I cannot, if I do not, I 
 cannot trust the God in heaven above us, 
 Robert." 
 
 " There is one other thing," said Robert, with- 
 out smiling. " I am going to speak out to you, 
 soul to soul. Too much is at stake for any pal- 
 try reservations and I can consider nothing 
 but the salvation of my patient. I can't stand 
 on anything not even on wounding you, 
 Marna if I must. I think you will under- 
 stand me ; but if you don't, I cannot help that. 
 I must speak and run my risk." 
 
 He rose and paced the library, showing his 
 first sign of disturbance in all that tense, tre- 
 mendous evening. 
 
 "Speak, Robert," I said; " I am not dull." 
 
 He stopped and looked down upon me with 
 the most solemn and the most beautiful spirit 
 that I ever saw imprisoned in the eyes of any 
 man.
 
 336 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " Marna," he said, " to save your husband you 
 must love him without any qualifications. You 
 must love him altogether. You must serve him 
 altogether. Nothing must come between your- 
 self and him not even the shadow of that 
 which never has been and can never be no 
 other feeling, no other thought. Not even a 
 friendship must divert your interest in Dana's 
 cure no, not even ours. You will think of 
 it and express it as little as possible, Marna. 
 It is the only way. And if I do not . . . express 
 it, you will not allow yourself to believe that I 
 ... do not think of it. You said you would 
 trust me, you know. And I shall be always 
 here. We must fight this fight together yet 
 apart sacredly." . . . His voice broke. He 
 turned abruptly, went up-stairs to his patient, 
 and so left me. 
 
 I slipped to my knees and hid my face in my 
 hands. I can never say again that I do not 
 know what it is to pray. 
 
 January the thirtieth. 
 
 WE are living so intensely that I wonder I ever 
 thought I knew what it was to live before. 
 How small are the simple joys and sorrows 
 beside the great dramas where soul and body 
 are intervolved the tremendous pathological
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 337 
 
 secrets upon which a human home may lock its 
 doors ! There the physician stands high priest, 
 and sacred. There a wife finds herself perhaps 
 for the first time in her married life at peace 
 with her wifehood; she comes to her valuation; 
 all the tenderness of her nature is employed, all 
 that which had not been cherished, that which 
 she had come to count as superfluous and wasted. 
 It is impossible for me to say how happy I am 
 to find myself so necessary to Dana. My poor 
 boy is gaining upon himself day by day, each 
 one bringing a little advance that we can see 
 and he can feel. I heard my father say once, 
 when he was recovering from some illness : 
 
 " The happiest people in this world are the 
 convalescents." 
 
 There are times when I think the happiest 
 man I ever saw is Dana. There are others when 
 the blackness of the spaces before God said 
 " Let there be light " seems to envelope him ; 
 and darkness which can be felt rolls between his 
 soul and mine. But when this happens I have 
 learned to say : " This, too, will pass." 
 
 There are days when Eliot is not suffered to 
 leave his patient for the lifting of an eyelash. 
 There are nights when the house is guarded, and 
 when James or Peterkin sleeps in the library. 
 There are others when the doctor himself stays
 
 338 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 with us from dark to dawn ; but these are rare, 
 and are becoming rarer. Not once yet has Dana 
 fled from us, or obtained it for himself from any 
 source. There is everything in preserving the 
 patient's self-respect and his reputation, Robert 
 says. This he has most skilfully succeeded in 
 doing. Such tact, such gentleness and firmness 
 but I cannot write of it. 
 
 It is understood that Dana has come home 
 from Uruguay with some malarial condition due 
 to the climate. We are often seen walking or 
 driving together. From this circumstance the 
 neighborhood seems to derive a kind of reflected 
 joy. We are so happy that I find no time to 
 write of anything. 
 
 To-day Dana asked a great privilege that 
 Eliot should go out of the house, and that I 
 should spend the whole day with him. The doc- 
 tor consented without hesitation. There is some- 
 thing, he says, in trusting a patient. Dana and 
 I took a long walk in the morning ; in the after- 
 noon Robert sent over his horses, and we had a 
 sleigh-ride, and Marion went with us. Between- 
 whiles my dear boy asked me to sit by him, to 
 read to him, and once to brush his hair as I used 
 to do. When he slept he held my hand, and I 
 sat on the edge of the bed, cramped and uncom- 
 fortable, and well content. When he woke he said :
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 339 
 
 " You 're a dear, sweet girl ! " 
 
 Often he calls me pathetically : 
 
 " Marna, can you spare time to stay with me 
 a little ? It seems to me you have been gone a 
 great while. I miss you, Marna." Or perhaps 
 it is : " Eliot, where is my wife *? I want my 
 wife." Or, " Marion, run and call your mother. 
 I want your mother. Ask her to come and 
 bring her sewing in here. I want her to sit 
 where I can see her." 
 
 So Marion runs, and, being overcome with 
 the importance of her mission, tumbles upon 
 her words, and gets no further than : 
 
 " Pity Popper ! Pity Popper ! " 
 
 " Marion, Marion ! " I say, " I do pity Pop- 
 per with all my heart." And I hurry to him, 
 and he turns his poor face with the havoc on it, 
 and lifts his wasted hand, and draws my cheek 
 to his. Then I see that he is sore beset, and 
 I challenge my love that it may be strength to 
 him, and all my strength that it may be love for 
 him. The tenderness that he used to disregard 
 I can pour upon him, as Radha did on Krishna, 
 " give to him in fullest measure " now. I am 
 not afraid of loving him too much now. I am 
 not ashamed to show him how I feel to him 
 now. If I touch him, if I kiss him, he cherishes 
 me now. He cannot live without this wine.
 
 340 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 February the twelfth. 
 
 DANA is beginning to refer sometimes to things 
 that happened while he was away. Until now 
 he has scarcely alluded to the abyss which he 
 thrust between us. Last night he said : 
 
 " Oh, I was so homesick, Marna ! But I was 
 ashamed to come back. Nobody knows how 
 a man feels ... so many thousand miles 
 away . . . and sick. Oh, it was such a 
 blanked country ! " 
 
 The other day he said : 
 
 " The nights were the worst. I could not get 
 any sleep without it. One night I said two 
 nights I said : ' If I die for it, 1 will not increase 
 the dose to-night.' And it got to be two 
 o'clock, and those sinking-turns came on, and I 
 thought it was all up with me. Then I called 
 you. I cried out very loud : ' Marna ! Marna ! ' 
 Upon my word, dear girl, I believe I thought 
 you 'd hear me." 
 
 Then I said : 
 
 " I did hear, Dana." For I remembered the 
 nights when I heard his voice quite plainly, 
 and it was just two o'clock, and he called : 
 " Marna ! " 
 
 He has never spoken about his wedding- 
 ring; nor have I. The little gold Madonna 
 still hangs upon his watch-guard, though his
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 341 
 
 watch is gone. What has she witnessed*? 
 She keeps her counsel well. 
 
 February the twentieth. 
 
 I WAS looking over some of Dana's things to- 
 day, for we have been so absorbed with our 
 patient, and so busy with downright nursing, 
 that, really, I have never straightened anything 
 out properly since he came back. The doctor 
 had taken him out driving (with Marion), and I 
 had an hour altogether to myself. In one of 
 his pockets I found my photograph the old 
 one in the May-flower dress. It was in a leather 
 case that folded over, and it was very much 
 worn. He seems to have lost Marion's, but 
 this the tears smarted to my eyes when I saw 
 how often he must have handled my picture 
 my poor boy ! 
 
 Afterward I was dusting out his traveling 
 dressing-case, and mending it, for the lining had 
 broken away, and under the lining, carefully 
 pinned in so that it should not slip, I found the 
 leaf of the woodbine that I ran and picked for 
 him from the tree-house on that morning 
 that last one, when he sailed, when the woman 
 with the hand-organ sang, " Keep me from sink- 
 ing down ! " The ruby-red leaf has faded to a 
 dull color, and is quite frail and brittle. I won-
 
 342 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 der that it has lasted at all. I kissed the leaf, 
 for I thought perhaps he might have kissed it 
 if he cared enough to keep it. At first I thought 
 I would ask him. But I have concluded that a 
 wife is wiser (consequently happier) not to put 
 emotional catechisms to her husband. Few men 
 take kindly to this feminine habit, even well 
 ones; and a sick man resents it. And a few 
 drops of resentment will extinguish a forest fire 
 of tenderness. The doctor said to me one day 
 when Dana first came home : 
 
 " Take as much for granted as possible. As- 
 sume all you can." 
 
 I have no time in these days to think much 
 not too much about the doctor ; but once in 
 a while I wonder how he has become a master 
 of the magicians: how he should be expert in 
 the occult art of married life this lonely man. 
 I suppose it may be partly because he belongs 
 to one of the confessional professions. 
 
 March the first 
 
 TO-DAY there has been a blasting storm. We 
 have sat within a white whirlwind, as if we were 
 on the outside of a blind planet, spinning through 
 frozen ether on a mysterious errand, directed by 
 the moving finger of the unseen God. So, 
 I think, a human love whirls blindly before
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 343 
 
 its fate, driven by the Power not itself, through 
 fire, through frost, through midnight, through 
 dawn ; and the heart rides upon it, like organ- 
 ized life upon the globe, fixed there without 
 consent or power to rebel, whirling on anyhow, 
 anywhere, gladly or madly, yet, on the whole, 
 enjoying the ride ! 
 
 Though I go along trembling, like a leaf driven by a 
 strong wind, have mercy, Almighty, have mercy! 
 
 That verse from the pagan scriptures which 
 Father used to like comes to me differently lately. 
 I should put it like this : 
 
 Though I am a leaf driven by a strong wind, I bless Thee, 
 Almighty, I bless Thee! 
 
 To-day I am quivering between happiness and 
 pain, diving from the skies to the sod and up 
 again for Dana has touched the piano ; it is 
 the first time. 
 
 We have had a hard day with him, for it was 
 impossible for him to go out, and Eliot is off duty 
 on an experiment Dana pleaded so. The doc- 
 tor waded over in the blizzard to see him early 
 this morning; no horse could live in the drifts. 
 Robert sat with his patient a long time, and 
 left me with the day's orders, and would come 
 again.
 
 344 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 "Give up everything else," he said. "De- 
 vote yourself utterly. Days like this are traps. 
 Watch him, but do not seem to. Repeat the 
 dose, but not till four o'clock. Lock everything 
 carefully. Run no chances." 
 
 Dana has been very restless all day. At two 
 he asked me timidly " if it were not time." At 
 three he asked again. At half-past three rTe 
 grew suddenly very faint and went a deathly 
 color, and I telephoned, and Robert came, strug- 
 gling and panting, through the snow. When he 
 came, he sat with his watch in his hand and a 
 finger on Dana's pulse. But he sat till the time 
 appointed, yielding nothing, I am sure, in this 
 piteous battle; nor did my poor boy beg for 
 quarter, not once. They fought it out together, 
 man to man. 
 
 " Can't you give us a little music, Mrs. Her- 
 win 2 " asked the doctor, in a matter-of-fact 
 way. But the interrogation was a command. I 
 went to the piano and played for a while, blun- 
 dering along with old things of Schubert and 
 Schumann that Dana and I used to like, but stu- 
 pidly enough ; and I do not sing. After a time 
 I stopped and went into the library. Dana was 
 there reading quietly, and Marion and Job were 
 playing about his feet. Robert had gone. 
 Dana's eyes had their varnished look but, ah,
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 345 
 
 so much less of it, and softer ; it is no longer 
 painful. I went to him, and he clung to my 
 hand a little. Then I sat down and began to 
 mend a tear in the flounce of Dombey's second 
 wife; and while I was sewing quietly, suddenly 
 the long-silent power of his hand upon the piano- 
 keys smote every nerve in my body. Then his 
 shaken voice uprose : 
 
 Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest ; 
 
 Home-keeping hearts are happiest. 
 For those that wander they know not where 
 Are full of trouble and full of care 
 
 To stay at home is best. 
 
 Then his hand fell with a crash upon the ivory. 
 I ran, and held his face against my breast, and 
 bowed my own upon his hair, and said to him 
 I don't know what ; and I kissed him in a way 
 he used to like. Then he whirled upon the 
 piano-stool, and caught me and crushed me to 
 his heart. 
 
 " You 're the sweetest woman in the world ! " 
 he said. "I never did deserve you, Marna; 
 and now " 
 
 Then I said : 
 
 " I always loved you, Dana ; but now I 
 honor you. It is a manly fight, and you battle 
 like a man."
 
 346 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 " It was n't a manly fall," he quivered piti- 
 fully. " I had n't any good excuse no terri- 
 ble suffering, as some have. I thought I could 
 stop any time. But, before God, Mama, nobody 
 knows ! Nobody can" 
 
 " My poor boy ! " I sobbed. " My poor, poor 
 boy ! " 
 
 I do not cry in these days never for Dana 
 to see me. I think this was the first time, and I 
 was ashamed and terrified at what I had done. 
 But it did not seem to harm him any ; I think it 
 even did him good. He looked at me with 
 such a look as I would have died for joy to see 
 upon his face once, in that time before he went 
 away. 
 
 " If it had n't been for you, my girl " he fal- 
 tered. He whirled and struck the piano with a few 
 resounding chords. " When I get well, Marna, 
 I will make it up to you," he said. He played 
 and sang no more ; but we passed a gentle even- 
 ing, and he went quietly to bed. 
 
 I don't think I ever knew real, live happiness 
 before not growing happiness, with roots. 
 "The madness has gone, but the dearness re- 
 mains." 
 
 April the fifth. 
 
 TO-DAY we were driving alone, and the soft air 
 had wings. Dana seemed to be lifted upon
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 347 
 
 them to some lonely upper ether where I could 
 not follow him. There is no solitude, I believe, 
 after all, like that of the soldier in a profound 
 moral struggle; it is more separate than that of 
 any mere misery. Dana looked exalted and re- 
 mote. Lately he has made great advances and 
 gains upon himself in the process of his cure. 
 These have weakened his physical but intensi- 
 fied his moral vitality. He said abruptly : 
 
 " You see, I thought if I went away I could 
 get rid of it. I did n't want to have anybody 
 know I felt ashamed. There was one time I 
 thought if you knew, I should dislike you. I 
 could n't tell how you would take it a man 
 can't bear to be lectured. If I had only known ! 
 Marna, you have been a lovely girl. You 're 
 too good 'for the likes of me.'" He tried to 
 laugh it off, but his lip trembled. 
 
 " I thought the voyage would do something ; 
 but it made everything worse. When I got to 
 California a man would n't ever need natural- 
 ization papers in hell, not after that." . . . 
 
 ..." Thought I had deserted you, Marna '? 
 Well, I had, I suppose. I could n't come home 
 like that. I thought I should drop out of 
 sight, die of an overdose some night, and be out 
 of everybody's way, It put itself to me in that 
 light. I used to say : ' You 're a disgraceful
 
 348 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 wreck. You 'd only shame her. Perish, and 
 rid her of you. It 's the only manly thing left 
 for you to do.' Three or four times I mixed the 
 overdose, and lay down to take it and die ; and 
 I had a letter that I kept ready for you when 
 everything was over. Then I would see that 
 little quiver of your chin " 
 
 " Where is that letter, Dear ? " I asked. 
 
 " I gave it to the doctor," he said. " He 
 did n't want me to have it around. I asked him 
 to burn it. If it had n't been for Hazelton, 
 Marna Say, Marna, have you any idea what 
 that fellow has done for me *? " 
 
 He checked the horse, and we turned toward 
 home. Dana drove rapidly and in silence. 
 When we came in sight of the hospital we met 
 the doctor, driving too. He had the paralytic 
 patient in the buggy, and no speech or language 
 could tell the transfiguration of the poor thing's 
 face. But Robert looked worn. 
 
 " Marna," said Dana, abruptly, " I wonder you 
 never fell in love with him. I should n't have 
 blamed you." 
 
 I slid my hand into my husband's, and his closed 
 upon my wrist. 
 
 May the twenty-second. 
 
 IT is a week to-night since it happened, and I am 
 writing (as I do) because nothing else will rest me. 
 
 Dana went to bed as usual, and no one thought
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 349 
 
 of any trouble or any danger. He had been 
 so much better, and Eliot has not been required 
 to stay for quite a while. Dana and I have 
 fought it out alone I giving the diminished 
 dose, by the doctor's orders ; it had grown quite 
 small. About two weeks ago my poor boy asked 
 Robert's permission to handle the dose himself. 
 " Don't you think I am fit to be trusted now ? " 
 he asked abruptly. So Robert trusted him. And 
 everything went well, for the quantity was care- 
 fully prescribed and watched, and it lessened 
 regularly and rapidly, day by day. The doctor 
 says that he has never seen any person show the 
 pluck and determination that Dana has shown in 
 ridding himself of his affliction. 
 
 " It is a manly record," Robert said. " Mr. 
 Herwin has won my unqualified respect." 
 
 I had begun to feel very proud of Dana. 
 
 On this evening that I refer to (it was Sunday 
 evening) Dana had been playing a little, and 
 he tried to sing the "Bedouin Love-Song"; but 
 he could not do it, for it seemed to move him 
 too much, and emotion saps his strength. He 
 began : 
 
 From the Desert I come to thee 
 
 but stopped abruptly and left the room. 
 
 He called me presently, saying that he thought 
 he would go to bed ; and I went up to help him
 
 350 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 in the little ways he likes, and kissed him good 
 night, and went to Marion, for she cried for 
 me. Then I locked the front door, and Job 
 came up with me, and trotted into Dana's room 
 at once. Job has slept on his master's bed 
 every night since Dana came home. Dana was 
 sleeping quietly, so I went to bed, the doors 
 being open between our rooms, and the com- 
 pass-candle burning on Dana's table. 
 
 Once or twice in the night I crept in to make 
 sure that all was well, and once he kissed me 
 and said I was a dear, sweet girl ; but I slept be- 
 tweenwhiles, feeling quite at ease about him, 
 and I was asleep when Job came into my room. 
 I think the dog had tried to wake me without 
 at first succeeding, for he was pulling hard at 
 my hand with his thin old paws when I be- 
 came aware of him. I understood at once, and 
 I sprang. Job never cries " Wolf! " and he is 
 wiser than most people. 
 
 " Is Master sick, Job *? " I cried ; but I ran. 
 
 The compass-candle was burning brightly; 
 and when it showed me Dana's face, I gave such 
 a cry that Ellen rushed from the nursery, and 
 the house was aroused in a moment. I man- 
 aged to articulate, " The telephone ! the doc- 
 tor ! " while I lifted my dear boy to the air and 
 did what I could for him. This was little enough,
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 351 
 
 for he could take no stimulants, and he seemed 
 to me to be dying in my arms. I had nothing 
 to offer him but love and air the two elements 
 on which human life depends. Some one had 
 flung up the window, and I held him to my 
 heart and whispered to him : 
 
 " Live, Dana, live ! I love you, Dana. Oh, 
 try to live ! " 
 
 I was babbling in this way, like a bride, when 
 I looked up and saw the doctor's startled face. 
 It was now half-past two o'clock, the fatal hour 
 " between the night and dawning " when mortal 
 strength is at its lowest, the dead-line of im- 
 periled life. 
 
 From then till seven o'clock we fought for 
 Dana science and love, the doctor and I. To 
 my fading hour I shall see Robert as he looked 
 that night. Beyond a few curt professional 
 orders he did not speak. His jaws shut like 
 steel locks. His gentle eyes grew terrible, and 
 challenged death. Again and again my dear 
 boy sank away from us, and once the pulse 
 stopped altogether; but the doctor called my 
 husband's spirit back. 
 
 I could feel that a flicker of the judgment, a 
 blur upon the heart, any error or failure in the 
 man, would have cost everything. Dana's life 
 lay in Robert's hand as utterly as if it had been
 
 352 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 a little jewel put there for safe-keeping, and 
 blown through sheltering fingers by a whirlwind. 
 
 Afterward, when it was over, I lifted my eyes 
 to the doctor's face. Dana's had been no whiter 
 in all those hours. 
 
 " I suppose it was an overdose ? " I breathed. 
 " He took too much ? " 
 
 " There was no dose at all," said Robert. 
 " Mr. Herwin has taken no morphine for twenty- 
 four hours." 
 
 He held up the vial with the thick white 
 liquid, and showed me the ebb-line. 
 
 " I could not understand why you repeated 
 the dose," I whispered. " It terrified me to see 
 you do it." 
 
 The doctor made no comment then, except 
 to say that he would send Eliot over at once. 
 But the next day Robert talked with me a little 
 about what had happened. He told me that a 
 man who could do what Dana had done had in 
 him that which physicians call the vital essence ; 
 Dana had shown that he possessed the moral 
 basis for physical renewal. " I am now ready 
 to tell you that your husband is capable of cure," 
 the doctor said. " He will recover, by God's 
 grace." 
 
 "And yours," I tried to say. But the words
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 353 
 
 refused me. They seemed like beggars in a 
 palace. 
 
 June the sixteenth. 
 
 MINNIE CURTIS came over to-day. She brought 
 Dana's violin; for it seems she has kept it all 
 this while. Dana thanked her indifferently. 
 She asked him to play a duet, but he said he 
 did not feel well enough, and added that he was 
 out of practice. She took up the " Bedouin Love- 
 Song," and drummed the prelude. Dana looked 
 annoyed and left the room. When Minnie 
 started to go it was dusk, and I asked Dana if 
 he did not feel like walking home with her. 
 
 " Certainly," he said ; " put your hat on, 
 Mama." 
 
 So Dana and Job and I escorted Minnie 
 home. On the way back I asked him : 
 
 "Did she write to you while you were in 
 Uruguay ? " 
 
 " Oh, bother Minnie Curtis ! " cried my hus- 
 band. 
 
 When we had got home we sat down in 
 the tree-house for a while, and the scent of the 
 June lilies was so strong that it made Dana 
 faint. But the breath of the climbing roses was 
 so delicate and so joyous that I could have wept 
 with comfort. 
 
 " Duets are well enough in their places," said
 
 354 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Dana, comfortably ; " but when it comes to real 
 life and trouble there 's nothing for a man 
 like an unselfish wife. . . Marna, you 're a 
 lovely girl ! " 
 
 We sat in the tree-house with clasped hands. 
 Something dearer than betrothal, finer than our 
 bridal, drew us together. Dana's worn face held 
 an expression which touched me indescribably. 
 But the faintness increased upon him, and I had 
 to get him into the house. The sad thing about 
 Dana's convalescent strength is that it deserts 
 him so abruptly, at unexpected moments and 
 for unthought-of causes. Yet he is gaining 
 sturdily. I am very happy. 
 
 Robert thinks I am overdoing but I am 
 quite happy. Dana begins to show more in- 
 terest in Marion than he did. At first it was 
 only of me that he seemed to think. He sits 
 in the air and sun for hours, with Marion and 
 Job laughing and barking about him. Lately 
 he has begun to read; I often find him with 
 his law-books. Mr. J. Harold Mellenway has 
 been out to see him. Next week Dana is to 
 be allowed to go to town alone; the doctor 
 has given this permission. All that varnished 
 look has gone from Dana's eyes; they do not 
 regain their old insouciance, and the bright in- 
 solence is beaten out of my poor boy's beauty ;
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 355 
 
 but I am watching for the debonair in him that 
 I loved so. Will it never revisit him ? Or 
 me? 
 
 " You expect the miracles," said Robert, once, 
 when I spoke of this. 
 
 "Because you work them," I replied. 
 
 Robert's eyes filled ; they do not often. He 
 said: 
 
 " The miracle may be in a man's own heart." 
 
 " Or in a woman's," I answered him. Yet 
 afterward I was not quite sure that I understood 
 the purport of his words; nor, perhaps, of my 
 own. But I had the consciousness, so frequent 
 with me, that Robert understood everything, 
 and that it did not matter whether I did or 
 not. 
 
 Wednesday evening. 
 
 So it was not Dana, and it was not Man. I am 
 spared that great dilemma. And all the scenery 
 has changed joyously, and the house, though 
 serried of women, seems to cry out upon me no 
 more, but only to lift to me gently murmuring 
 eyes. There is a soft, pleased look in the eyes 
 of contented women, not unlike that in the eyes 
 of kindly treated animals. I wonder if I have it 
 myself; " for my race is of the Asra." 
 
 Are womanhood and manhood set at civil 
 war ? Then so are soul and body. There is a
 
 356 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 sketch of William Blake's. Death, the Divider, 
 has divorced this elemental marriage, sundered 
 the bliss of the spirit and the flesh. It is the 
 Resurrection Day. Out of the grave clambers 
 the body a man in the glory of his youth and 
 vigor. Down from the ether sweeps the soul 
 a woman fair and swift and tender. Anything 
 finer than the rapture on whose wings these 
 twain rush together I never saw expressed by 
 any art of pencil or of pen. It is one of the 
 embraces that imagination dares, but on whose 
 mystery and ecstasy hope does not intrude. 
 
 tfhe Dowe Cottage, August the twelfth. 
 WE have been here ten days, and are to stay the 
 month out, by the doctor's orders. We both 
 needed it, he said. Dana has 'gained blessedly 
 since we came, and is now thought to be quite in 
 condition to go back to his law office in the fall. 
 Mr. Mellenway comes over from his place (he 
 is a neighbor this summer), now and then, to see 
 Dana, and they talk about it. It is inexpressibly 
 touching to see how happy my poor boy is in 
 the prospect of doing a man's work again. In 
 fact, we are so light-hearted that I do not feel as 
 if it could last. One never again quite trusts 
 human happiness, I find, after one has experi- 
 enced great misery.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 357 
 
 We are all children playing on the sea-shore 
 together Marion and Job and Ellen and 
 Luella; but I think Dana and I are the biggest 
 children of all. We spend hours of every day 
 upon the sand, not reading, not talking, leaning 
 on that silence which is more than reverie but 
 less than thought. Mercibel came out and took 
 Sunday with us. She said : 
 
 " Joy has her elect, as well as sorrow." 
 Mercibel has her vacation just now, and she 
 and her children are in our house at home for 
 the month that we are here. It is a delight to 
 see the happiness this gives. The doctor comes 
 out once a week. We miss the doctor some- 
 times Dana more than I, sometimes I more 
 than Dana; we strike a fair average, I think. 
 He is expected next Saturday. 
 
 August the seventeenth. 
 
 YESTERDAY I had a shock and fright. It came 
 to be dark, and I could not find Dana anywhere. 
 He had seemed very quiet and well all day, and 
 we had been together a good deal ; but fearing to 
 sate him with tenderness, for the happiest 
 wife should reserve herself, I am beginning to 
 believe, I went up to put Marion to bed, and 
 lingered, leaving her father alone on the piazza. 
 He was watching for Robert, who was delayed,
 
 358 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 and had telegraphed us not to expect him until 
 we should see him. 
 
 When I got down-stairs Dana was gone, and 
 Job. It was then quite black, for the clouds 
 were piling for a shower, and the sea was thun- 
 dering. I ran down to the rocks and the little 
 beach. The surf was throwing up its hands, 
 and seemed to me for I was excited and 
 startled to wring them. A flash of lightning 
 revealed the fretted outlines of the weir and the 
 fishermen's dories. In one of these I saw the 
 figure of a man. He was rowing, and the boat 
 was turning out. Clinging to the stern seat 
 sat a little patient, watchful dog. I threw the 
 whole force of my soul and body into my voice, 
 and my " Dana I " might have called a spirit 
 from the grave, I thought. But he did not hear 
 me, being absorbed in God knows what abyss. 
 
 "Job! Job!" I cried. "Oh, Job! Tell 
 Master! " 
 
 Job's bark came instantly to me excited 
 and anxious, the high bark of aroused canine re- 
 sponsibility. There was lightning again, and I 
 saw that the little dog had crawled over in the 
 rocking boat and put his arms about his master's 
 neck. But now it was thundering, and no voice 
 could carry, either mine or Job's. While I 
 stood distressed and uncertain in the dark, for it
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 359 
 
 did not lighten any more, and the shower bab- 
 bled away foolishly, suddenly the keel grated 
 under my very feet. Job sprang into the surf, 
 and dashed himself, drenched and ecstatic, upon 
 me. Dana slowly tied the painter to the haul- 
 ing-line, and drew the dory out, hand over hand. 
 
 " Frightened, Marna ? " he said. 
 
 I went down quietly, and helped him haul the 
 dory off. I did not speak. 
 
 " I 'm all right," he muttered ; " I was only 
 hard put to it, that 's all." 
 
 We pulled on the hauling-line together till 
 the dory was out, and then we came up the 
 rocks, silently. Dana did not take my out- 
 stretched hand, and I perceived that his plight 
 was too sore for sympathy. A wife has learned 
 half the lesson of life, I think, if she has learned 
 when (and when not) to leave a man to fight 
 his direst battles without her. 
 
 Half-way up to the house we met the doctor. 
 Dana uttered a piteous exclamation : 
 
 " Hazelton ! I thought you were n't coming ! 
 I swore I would n't send for you," he added. 
 
 " I did my best," sighed Robert. " I have 
 some pretty sick people at home." 
 
 He fell into step with his patient. I slid away 
 and left the two men alone. The doctor re- 
 mained with Dana all the night.
 
 360 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 In the morning Robert and I found a few mo- 
 ments apart. 
 
 " Is it always going to be like this ? " I asked 
 at once. 
 
 " Possibly." 
 
 " Has he got to fight so to the end *? " 
 
 " Probably at times." 
 
 " Was he in danger ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Yet you count upon a sound recovery *? " 
 
 " I count upon recovery because he fights." 
 
 " It is so hard for him ! " I said. " And so 
 splendid in him ! " 
 
 " I respect your husband, Marna " Robert 
 drew a hard, slow breath " as much as any 
 patient I ever had in my life, and I want you to 
 know it. Doctors don't always, you know 
 they see so much moral weakness ; it wears on 
 them. I wish you to understand that, from my 
 point of view, you have reason to be very proud 
 of Mr. Herwin." 
 
 "Robert," I demanded, "tell me the utter 
 truth. How long can he fight like this? It 
 seems to me as if his body weakened while his 
 soul strengthens. I must know what is before 
 me. Will my husband live for many years ? " 
 
 "By God's grace," said Robert, using the 
 solemn words that he had used before.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 361 
 
 " You do not tell me all you think ! " I cried. 
 
 " Be Love incarnate to him, Marna," evaded 
 Robert, gently. " Give him all its price. All a 
 man's chance lies in the heart of his wife. And 
 yours," he added, '-'yours " The doctor did 
 not finish his sentence, and we talked no more ; 
 for Dana, with the havoc on his happy face, 
 came up and joined us. 
 
 September the nineteenth. 
 
 TO-MORROW is our wedding-day, and I have a 
 surprise for Dana. My poor boy has never 
 spoken to me of his missing marriage-ring ; nor 
 I of it to him. But I can see him sometimes 
 looking wistfully at his bare left hand; and last 
 night he kissed my rings, both of them, the ruby 
 and the gold, in a way that went to my heart, 
 but he said nothing at all. Dana has grown so 
 kind, so gentle, that it frightens me. That ter- 
 rible irritability of his is melting away from him. 
 Sometimes I wish I could see more of it, and 
 there are moments when I think if he were a 
 little cruel, as he used to be, I should feel hap- 
 pier about him. When he swears, or is down- 
 right cross, my spirits are quite good. It is not 
 natural for Dana to be patient, and it troubles me 
 to see him unnaturally considerate. Character 
 has its price, as well as love ; and it seems to me
 
 362 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 as if he paid the cost of his in the treasury of his 
 life. 
 
 I have got a wedding-ring for Dana. 
 
 September the twenty-first. 
 
 How natural is joy, my heart! 
 How easy after sorrow! 
 
 WE had a dear day. It was bride's weather 
 without and within. Dana got up very early, 
 for he was restless and sleepless, and began to 
 decorate the cottage with pearl-white roses and 
 ferns the fine ones, no large fronds. 
 
 "You shall be a bride again, Marna," he 
 said. " I have no other present for you, Dear. 
 I looked at a lot of little things ; but nothing 
 suited me." 
 
 We were smothered in flowers. Everybody 
 sent something the Grays, the Mellenways, 
 Mercibel, and a few old friends in town who 
 knew; the neighbors, the servants, Minnie 
 Curtis and the old doctor, the staff from the 
 hospital, and two or three of the patients. The 
 paralytic produced hydrangeas and a Bible text. 
 But the old lady distinguished by fits offered 
 a wreath of immortelles (as if we had been a 
 funeral), and wrote upon her card : " I have n't 
 had one for six weeks." 
 
 Marion was quite well (having had one of her
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 363 
 
 throats the day before). I put her in the old 
 May-flower muslin that I have made over for 
 her, and Job wore a white necktie. Marion 
 had varnished the doll's house for the occasion, 
 and the effect was heightened by the fact that 
 she had performed this work of art with the mu- 
 cilage-brush, which she had dipped into the ink- 
 bottle in the process. Dombey was induced to 
 ride to the festivities in an automobile; but 
 Dombey's second wife followed at a deferential 
 distance, dragging a baby-carriage with twins. 
 Poor Banny Doodle was conspicuously absent, 
 having at last met a final fate in the clothes- 
 wringer ; she is temporarily interred at the foot 
 of the tree-house. Invitations to a ceremonious 
 funeral are to be out, it is understood, next 
 week. Marion develops a quaint quality, and 
 something like imagination. She begins to be 
 old enough to interest her father. He does not 
 like too new a baby. When she was born he 
 asked if she were Maltese. 
 
 THE doctor did not come over yesterday at 
 all ; nor did he send us any flowers or message 
 with the others. I could not deny to myself 
 that I should have felt happier through the day 
 if he had. It is a strange matter that love, 
 which exiles friendship at the first, may recall it 
 at the last; yes, and love the truer and be the
 
 364 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 gladder for it. At least, that is the road of my 
 experience. I wonder if it is a forest path, un- 
 beaten though not untrodden ? I think of that 
 old question that I used to ask myself about 
 Man and Dana. To me, beyond the lot of 
 women, has been given faith in a fair and noble 
 friendship. Is it Man *? Or is it Robert ? 
 
 Just as the sun sank, James came over with 
 something under his arm, and the doctor's love. 
 Dana untied the package excitedly, he was as 
 happy about everything as if he had been a boy 
 at a birthday party, and we thought it was a 
 picture. But it was not a picture : it was a 
 prayer. There was a deep frame of bright gold, 
 and a panel of dulled gold, and the letters flick- 
 ered from it like little flames of crimson and of 
 white. The words were eight, and they prayed 
 the Prayer of Tobit in the Apocrypha : 
 
 MERCIFULLY ORDAIN 
 THAT WE MAY BECOME AGED 
 TOGETHER 
 
 Dana's eyes filled. Neither of us spoke. We 
 took the prayer up-stairs, and hung it in my hus- 
 band's room.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 365 
 
 " What follows is to the Music l^aradi and the 
 Mode Rupaka" So it ran in the Indian Song of 
 Songs, when Radha, forgiving Krishna, took 
 him to her heart, and they were married. 
 
 What follows is in the mode solitary, and to the 
 music of love and of repentance. For I have now 
 come to a page in my record which my husband 
 will not see, and through it I draw the dele-sign 
 of my separate soul. The happiest marriage 
 may have these erasures in shared experience, 
 and perhaps finish the great, completed sentence 
 of life not the less comfortably for that. I do 
 not deceive myself. I do not suppose that Dana 
 and I have had the happiest marriage. But the 
 end is not yet. And if we have saved our 
 sacred opportunity, where may it lead us *? The 
 salvation of an imperiled peace has I do not know 
 what of exquisite privilege. We seem to be 
 all the while expecting the unknown, the un- 
 tried, as we did when we were betrothed, as we did 
 when newly wedded. Still we have the elusive 
 to overtake ; even yet the eidolon flies before us. 
 There is an Indian summer of married life. In 
 that deep and purple atmosphere, sun-smitten, 
 warmed to the heart, will April seem a pale 
 affair ? I cannot tell. " There is burning haze 
 on all the hills. My eyes are dim. I can see 
 but a very little way."
 
 366 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 Now one thought has troubled me for this 
 many a week ; and on my wedding-day it took 
 definite thorn-shape and hid in my bride-roses. 
 
 As it grew to be dusk, a question which I 
 have often considered presented itself to me in 
 such a way that I could parry it no longer, and 
 I decided suddenly, and for myself, that I would 
 write to my husband the note which I append. 
 I decided this without consulting the doctor, 
 and risking something of the effect on Dana of 
 what I meant to do ; but it is as true that there 
 are times when no risks can come between the 
 souls of wife and husband as it is that there can 
 be no third estate in marriage. So I wrote the 
 note, and slipped it into his hand, and evaded 
 him, and left him to read it. 
 
 "Qur Wedding-day; twilight. 
 "DANA MY DARLING: Before we were married 
 and since and while you were away I have 
 kept a secret from you. I cannot be happy to 
 keep it any longer. All this while, Dana, I 
 have written something that you have never 
 seen. It is rather long, and it will pain you 
 sometimes ; and it will tell you perhaps it 
 will tell you what you do not know, perhaps 
 not: I cannot say. You may feel that you have 
 something to forgive me ; for I, too, have had
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 367 
 
 my holy war, and if I have come out of it 
 unwounded, that is owing not so much to any 
 superior quality in me as it is to the loyalty and 
 high nature of one who has fought for us both, 
 and saved us you from ruin and death, and me 
 from misery or from mistake. 
 
 "I have a wedding-present for you, Dear a 
 little one ; but before I give it to you I feel 
 that I must show you all my heart; for I must 
 be honest with you to my uttermost you know 
 you used to say that was my weakness. This 
 writing that I speak of holds me. I keep back 
 no part of the price. Will you take it the 
 Book of the Heart of the Wife ? 
 
 " It is like your ruby on my finger, blazing 
 deep to the core, if you look at it in the right 
 light (and all the crimson fires are yours, my 
 dear) ; but if you were to look at it in the 
 wrong way I dare not think of it ! I will not ! 
 
 "Give me no time to think, Dana, lest my 
 courage fail me, but answer me at once. 
 " Your trembling 
 
 " MARNA, Wife." 
 
 Now when Dana had read this note, such a 
 startled spark flickered in his tired, happy eyes 
 that I was terrified, lest what I had done was a 
 mistake and would harm him; and I should, I
 
 368 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 think, have repented and compromised, and 
 withheld the Book of the Heart from my hus- 
 band, after all, or until another day. But he 
 strode into my room where I sat quaking, and im- 
 periously commanded me, and I found myself 
 but a reed before the wind of his aroused will, 
 as I used to be when we first loved each other. 
 
 " I must have the book," he said. " Don't be 
 afraid. Give it to me." So I gave him the 
 book saving only this which I am writing 
 now, and that one page where it was written in 
 the Dowe Cottage that the doctor evaded one 
 of my questions about Dana if the battle with 
 his affliction continued so sore and so exhaust- 
 ing. 
 
 I gave him the book, and he went away into 
 his own room, and locked his door, and read. I 
 went into my room, and got out of my wedding- 
 dress and into my ruby gown, the dear old 
 faded thing ! and threw up the window, lest 
 I suffocate with the beating of my heart ; and I 
 took down my hair and braided it for the night, 
 and lay down on my bed, and said to myself: 1 
 
 " I have committed the worst mistake of my 
 life. In my obstinate impulse to be honest 
 just to set my own soul at ease I have run the 
 risk of estranging Dana forever. And this 
 foolish manuscript may make him ill; it might
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 369 
 
 even be very dangerous for him. . . . What 
 have I done?" 
 
 Two whirling hours spun between us, and he 
 made no sign. All the rooms were still. The 
 child was asleep ; the servants were gone out : 
 Dana and I were alone in the house. The air 
 seemed to have absorbed the scent of the souls 
 of all the bridal flowers hundreds of them 
 in our rooms, and in the silent spaces of the 
 house down-stairs. Job was wandering about 
 the house, neglected and forlorn. He crept in 
 on tiptoe, as if he knew that he ought not to in- 
 trude. When he found me alone, he sprang 
 and kissed me rapturously, and put his poor old 
 paws about my neck, and I said aloud : 
 
 " You 've stood by me through it all, Job ! " 
 
 That trifling, commonplace thing and the sound 
 of my own voice somehow steadied me. I got 
 up and took Job into the nursery, and put him 
 to bed in his basket by Marion's crib, and kissed 
 them both, the child and the dog, and came 
 back into my own room. 
 
 When I had done so, I found that Dana was 
 there. He had brought the compass-candle 
 and set it down upon the table. Beside the 
 candle lay the Book of the Heart, a mass of 
 crushed and crumpled manuscript, scattered any- 
 how. Dana was very pale. His face was, in
 
 370 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 fact, so rigid and unsmiling that I shrank from 
 him, and slipped back into a dark corner of the 
 hall. I do not think he saw me, for he strode 
 by with ringing feet, and down the stairs, and 
 out of the front door. 
 
 I came to my senses at that, and ran down 
 after him, calling : " Dana ! Dana dear! " But 
 he did not hear me, or he did not answer, and 
 melted into the darkness while I spoke. Such 
 a consciousness of what this might mean surged 
 within me that I could have shrieked for help ; 
 but I restrained myself, and only followed him 
 quietly, catching up my white cape to cover me 
 as I flew by the sofa in the hall. 
 
 He walked rapidly, but I ran, and so I came 
 within sight of him half-way between the tree- 
 house and the avenue. I did not cry out to 
 him, or in any way make my presence known, 
 for the power to do so had gone out in me, like 
 the bubbling of a drowning voice under water. 
 When I saw that he had his face set toward the 
 hospital I followed no farther, but crushed my- 
 self into the spiraea-bushes where it was darkest, 
 and so stood, shaking. Dana went on to the 
 hospital, and up the steps, and in. After a little 
 hesitation, I ran back to the house, and to the 
 telephone. Mercibel answered the call-bell. 
 
 " Is he with the doctor 1 ? " I panted.
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 371 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Manage to get a message. Tell the doctor 
 not to lose sight of him, for God's sake ! " 
 
 " Don't disturb yourself," said Mercibel. " It 
 is quite unnecessary." . 
 
 Dizzy both with my fright and with my fear, 
 I staggered out into the air again, and got as 
 far as the tree-house. There I stopped, and sat, 
 quaking and cold. It seemed to me as if my 
 own nature stood aloof and looked at me criti- 
 cally, and took sides against me, and stripped me 
 comfortless, and I argued with my nature. 
 
 " Happiness was in your arms," I said, " and 
 you opened them and let it drop ; that 's all. 
 Probably there are plenty of people just as hon- 
 est as you are who don't make so much fuss 
 about it. It takes this to teach you that reserve 
 may be just as right and honorable as expres- 
 sion, and sometimes more necessary. . . . Dana 
 will never forgive you, never. He has read it 
 all, and gone straight to the doctor with it. 
 Probably Robert will never forgive you, either. 
 You have lost them both." 
 
 While I sat there, stabbing myself with these 
 poniards, footsteps crackled on the gravel walk, 
 and I got out of the tree-house and fled before 
 them, wrapping my long white cloak about me 
 as I ran, drawing the girdle of my shabby gown,
 
 372 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 and fastening the lace somehow at the throat, 
 for I was not dressed to be seen. In my distress 
 and hurry I stumbled on the piazza steps and 
 fell, and I heard a low, disturbed exclamation 
 from the doctor ; but it? was my husband who 
 ran and lifted me. As he did so his arm went 
 about me, and I leaned upon it, for I could not 
 stand, I trembled so. 
 
 "Don't be a goose now, Marna," said Dana. 
 " You 've been magnificent too long ! " 
 
 He tried to laugh in his old, boyish way, but 
 he could not do it. His face was very white ; 
 it had his beautiful look. 
 
 " Here, Marna," he said, " is the best man I 
 ever knew in my life. I 've been over to tell 
 him so." 
 
 Before I knew what my husband meant to do, 
 he had fallen on his knees before the doctor, 
 and had drawn me with him. 
 
 " Bless us, old fellow," said Dana. " We 
 we need it. There is n't any saint or minister I 'd 
 ask it of but vou. It 's a kind of a second 
 
 ./ 
 
 ceremony, don't you see 1 My wife and I " 
 But Dana choked. I think that Robert's 
 
 hands trembled for a moment upon our bowed 
 
 heads. I think he said : 
 
 "The Lord bless you, and keep you, . . . and 
 
 give you peace."
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 373 
 
 But when I raised my raining eyes my hus- 
 band and I were alone upon the dark piazza. 
 Dana led me into the house, and shut the door, 
 and locked it; then drew me up the stairs and 
 into our own rooms. And when the doors of 
 these were shut, he held out both his arms; so 
 I ran to them, and they closed about me. 
 
 " You 're a lovely girl ! " said Dana. " I 
 never half deserved you, Marna. ... I never 
 shall. Have I been too sure you would forgive 
 me, dear *? . . . Say, Marna, after all that are 
 you sure you want me?" 
 
 Then I took out the ring that I had worn all 
 day on a chain against my heart, till I could 
 gather my courage to show it to Dana the 
 wedding-ring, all warm as it was. I put it to 
 my lips before I put it on his finger. Then I 
 laid my cheek upon his hand. But when I 
 raised my face, I heard him say, as he had said 
 it in my dream : " tfhis is the kiss that lives" 
 
 WE sat on in the dim room ; it was rose- 
 scented and still. Dana got into the easy-chair, 
 and took me in his lap. 
 
 " I am too heavy," I said ; " you are too 
 tired to hold me, Dear." 
 
 But Dana laughed. 
 
 " Why, you 've got on that dear old gown!"
 
 374 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 he said. He took a piece of the faded velvet 
 and lifted it slowly to his lips. 
 
 September the twenty-second. 
 
 DANA has been worse for all the excitement, as I 
 feared. He kept up joyously until yesterday after- 
 noon, when he suffered one of his sudden reac- 
 tions, and we sent for the doctor quickly. He was 
 not in, so I had to do the best I could for my 
 dear boy alone. As it happened, I made out 
 pretty well, and he did not sink, as he used to 
 do, but only grew faint, and then stronger, and 
 faint again ; but in the end he rallied grandly. I 
 have not felt so encouraged about Dana at any time. 
 
 When I was reading a novel to him after- 
 ward, to divert him from his suffering, suddenly 
 he interrupted me : 
 
 " Put it down, Marna. It seems dull after 
 the Book of the Heart. Real things are the 
 only interesting ones, are n't they ? That 
 was n't much of a fellow, that hero. Say, 
 Marna, there 's one thing I want you to un- 
 derstand. You don't know men, and I do. I 
 tell you, Hazelton is no common sort. He is 
 like a fellow seen in a mist taller than the 
 rest of us; yet when you come up to him he is 
 just as real, a man all the same God bless 
 him anyhow ! "
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 375 
 
 When it came to be evening, Dana asked for 
 the doctor. 
 
 *' I have n't seen him for two days ! " he com- 
 plained. 
 
 The telephone was out of order, and Ellen 
 was putting Marion to bed, so I caught up my 
 white cape and slipped out and over to call Rob- 
 ert myself. 
 
 I ran up the steps of my father's old home, 
 and into the office of the hospital. No one was 
 there, and I sat down in Robert's chair to wait 
 for him. His desk was brightly lighted, and an 
 open book lay upon it not a medical book, 
 plainly. I picked it up (I felt sure he would 
 not mind) and glanced at it. It was in French. 
 I translate from memory, and negligently 
 enough, for I read too quickly to recall the 
 French : 
 
 "Yet I love her." 
 
 " But she does not love you." 
 
 "Yet I adore her." 
 
 " But she will never come to meet you beneath the tree." 
 
 " Yet I am waiting for her." . . . 
 
 My eyes ran down the page and stayed at this, 
 against which Robert's pencil had slid and 
 paused : 
 
 " But with what do you appease your hunger? 1 '' 
 
 "I know not," said the youth. "It may be that I
 
 376 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 
 
 have now and then gathered mulberries from the nearest 
 hedge. ' ' 
 
 " And with what do you quench your thirst ? " 
 " That, too, I know ot," replied the youth. " Per- 
 chance I have sometimes stooped over the brook which flows 
 bard by." 
 
 As I sat with the book on my lap, Robert 
 came in. At first I did not speak ; I could not. 
 For I felt that the Book of his Heart lay open 
 before me, and he felt that I felt it, and there 
 was nothing to be said. 
 
 " My husband sent me " I faltered. 
 
 " I will go at once," replied the doctor, quietly. 
 He put on his hat and drew my falling cape 
 over my shoulders, and we started out. 
 
 He asked me one or two professional ques- 
 tions naturally enough, and I answered them 
 in the same way. We crossed the hospital 
 grounds, and the lawn, and came up to the tree- 
 house. 
 
 When we reached the tree-house, suddenly 
 the night seemed to quiver and to be smitten 
 through and through with reeling music; for 
 Dana, with the restlessness of his nature and of 
 his convalescence, had come to the piano and 
 begun to sing the dearest, the longest silent 
 of his songs :
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE 377 
 
 From the Desert I come to thee, 
 On my Arab shod with fire. 
 
 I love thee, I love but thee! 
 With a love that shall not die! 
 
 Till the sun grows cold, 
 
 And the stars are old, 
 And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold! 
 
 "Go to him," said Robert, in a low voice. 
 " I will wait till he has finished singing. Then 
 I shall follow you."
 
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