constant changes were beginning to satiate her, apparently spent a
time of intolerable _ennui_. It is still remembered in the
Pilfold family how Harriet appeared at their house late one night in a
ball dress, without shawl or bonnet, having quarrelled with Shelley. A
doctor who had to perform some operation on her child was struck with
astonishment at her demeanour, and considered her utterly without
feeling, and Shelley's poem, "Lines, April 1814," written, according
to Claire Clairmont's testimony, when Mr. Turner objected to his
visiting his wife at Bracknell, gives a touching picture of the
comfortless home which he was returning to; in fact, they seem to have
no sooner been together again than Harriet made a fresh departure.
There is one imploring poem by Shelley, addressed to Harriet in May
1814, begging her to relent and pity, if she cannot love, and not to
let him endure "The misery of a fatal cure"; but Harriet had not
generosity, if it was needed, and, according to Thornton Hunt, she
left Shelley and went to Bath, where she still was in July. What
Harriet really aimed at by this foolish move is doubtful; it was
certainly taken at the most fatal moment. To leave Shelley alone, near
dear friends, when she had been repelling his advances to regain her
affection, and making his home a place for him to dread to come into,
was anything but wise; but wisdom was not Harriet's _forte_; she
needed a husband to be wise for her. Shelley, however, had most gifts,
except such wisdom at this time.

Beyond these facts, there seems little but surmises to judge by. It
may always be a question how much Shelley really knew, or believed, of
certain ideas of infidelity on his wife's part in connection with a
Major Ryan--ideas which, even if believed, would not have justified
his subsequent mode of action.