As for my wife, she expressed no regret at the estrangement between her
mother-in-law and herself. By common consent, we never spoke on that
subject. We settled in the manufacturing town which I have already
mentioned, and we kept a lodging-house. My kind master, at my request,
granted me a lump sum in place of my annuity. This put us into a good
house, decently furnished. For a while things went well enough. I may
describe myself at this time of my life as a happy man.
My misfortunes began with a return of the complaint with which my mother
had already suffered. The doctor confessed, when I asked him the question,
that there was danger to be dreaded this time. Naturally, after hearing
this, I was a good deal away at the cottage. Naturally also, I left the
business of looking after the house, in my absence, to my wife. Little by
little, I found her beginning to alter toward me. While my back was
turned, she formed acquaintances with people of the doubtful and
dissipated sort. One day, I observed something in her manner which forced
the suspicion on me that she had been drinking. Before the week was out,
my suspicion was a certainty. From keeping company with drunkards, she had
grown to be a drunkard herself.
I did all a man could do to reclaim her. Quite useless! She had never
really returned the love I felt for her: I had no influence; I could do
nothing.
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