found him dead by his own hand. Amanda was three weeks old. I asked her quietly:

Why do you believe you killed him?

She answered slowly: "Because I married him. Because I burdened him with the respon-sibility of a wife and then a child, when he needed his free-dom as we need air. Because I was young, greedy for life, and did not see what I was doing to him."

She rested a little, then con-tinued: I must atone for what I feel to be my sin. Do you understand, Robert? Because of me a life was lost, and now I must go on alone, depending on no one. I cannot bring back the life that has gone... but I can make certain that I shall never wound anyone in the same way.

— Rosamund, you are being

hasty. It is not for you to pass judgment on yourself. You are worshipping the dead — is there not your duty to the living? Think of your daughter.

— Amanda is all my hopes. For her sake I live.

— Do you not see the error of that, Rosamund? Do you not believe that one day she will grow up to discover that you live for her sake, and that she will hate you for the chain you have bound her with?.. Suppose a man loved you and you returned his love. What would you do then? Would you drive him too to atone? Have you the

right to sacrifice him as well? That is what I mean when I call you cruel and hasty. You are hasty in your punishment of yourself.

— I was right to talk to you: I have not a single relative in the world, and I have told this to no one but the coroner.

— And why did you choose me?

— Because you are like him. He was gentle and tender, and he was a writer too. I believed he would be great some day... but he knew the limits of his gifts better than I did. The difference between you: you are strong, and he was weak. How often he tried to make me understand his weakness; but I was stupid — I believed that all he needed was encouragement, and I kept pushing him... Ah, if only I had understood him...