Layla was watching her husband's fingers as he broke open an envelope containing a letter from the bank, and she felt an inward tightening while he read it through. Scarcely had he come to the end of it when he said calmly: "Layla, do you know that our financial position is collapsing?" She answered, her mouth gone dry: "How could I know, when I have not seen the letter?"
— "And do you need to see it? Have you forgotten that you drew out a sum of money on the sixth of last month, and another on the twenty-seventh? I knew we were on the brink of the abyss after we came back from the holiday, but you ignored all of that completely."
Layla knew she had no strength or power to defend herself, so she took refuge in silence for a while; then she said resentfully: "Yes, I took the money — and why not? I am tired of scrimping, and I do not suppose you want our children going out in shabby clothes like orphans. I will not accept that for them so long as I am a mother!"
— "But what is your part as a wife? Is it your right to spend the money faster than I can earn it?"
Layla hurled her words like an arrow: "That is not my sin. Why did you marry me if you could not make your family secure?" It was a piercing thrust at the very core of Jamil's pride, and his wife knew it when he walked out of the dining room and slammed the door shut; she stayed where she was, hearing him pace back and forth. At last he left the house in a hateful silence.
Layla came to herself when she looked at the food left untouched on his plate; her anger melted away, and remorse took its place — and then a flood of tears.
Jamil did not come home that night. She searched for him in a panic the next morning and asked the relatives and friends, but no one could tell her anything of him. At last she sent for her mother to come and stay with her, and the mother advised her to come to me. When she entered my office, anxiety showed on her cheeks despite the elegance of her dress, and she handed me a written note in which I read the following:
Dear Layla,
I mean what I say this time; I have no strength to endure any longer. I have noticed that our marriage is going from bad to worse, and, as I have always told you, you are incapable of carrying out your duty as a