set Harriet against her husband, and made life less endurable for
both. She was so much older than the pair that she came in and
ruled their household like a typical stepmother.

A child was born, and Shelley very generously went through a
second form of marriage, so as to comply with the English law; but
by this time there was little hope of righting things again.
Shelley was much offended because Harriet would not nurse the
child. He believed her hard because she saw without emotion an
operation performed upon the infant.

Finally, when Shelley at last came into a considerable sum of
money, Harriet and Eliza made no pretense of caring for anything
except the spending of it in "bonnet-shops" and on carriages and
display. In time--that is to say, in three years after their
marriage--Harriet left her husband and went to London and to Bath,
prompted by her elder sister.

This proved to be the end of an unfortunate marriage. Word was
brought to Shelley that his wife was no longer faithful to him.
He, on his side, had carried on a semi-sentimental platonic
correspondence with a schoolmistress, one Miss Hitchener. But
until now his life had been one great mistake--a life of
restlessness, of unsatisfied longing, of a desire that had no
name. Then came the perhaps inevitable meeting with the one whom
he should have met before.

Shelley had taken a great interest in William Godwin, the writer
and radical philosopher. Godwin's household was a strange one.
There was Fanny Imlay, a child born out of wedlock, the offspring