"I--I do not know. Ah, I loved you so much, and so truly!"

And she did love him still; and clung to him to the last, but
not the less was she broken-hearted, so far as any enjoyment
of life was concerned; and her husband saw it. All sense of
rejoicing seemed to die out of her heart for ever. She hated
the splendour with which he sometimes surrounded her, even
more than the paltry shifts and expedients to which at other
times they had to resort, when he had spent all his money, and
there was no more forthcoming for the moment; she wept when
her children were born, thinking of the iniquity of the world
they had entered; and when her two little boys died one after
the other, there was almost a sense of relief mixed with the
bitterness of her sorrow, as she reflected on the father she
could not have taught them to respect, and on the abject evil
and misery from which she could not have shielded them.

As for M. Linders, he at once adored and neglected his wife,
as was the nature of the man; that is, he adored her
theoretically for her rare beauty, but neglected her
practically, when, after a few months of married life, he saw
her bloom fading, and her animation vanish, in the utter
despondency which had seized her, and which found its outward
expression in a certain studied composure and coldness of
manner. There soon came a time when he would have willingly
freed himself altogether from the constraint of her presence.
He travelled almost incessantly, spending the summer and
autumn at the German watering-places; the winter in France, or
Belgium, or Italy; and he would sometimes propose that she