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135 Mr. Norton may say, that since that occasion of desperate resolve—I have been frequently on friendly terms with him. That charge I will not refute. I am but a woman, and not even a very resolute woman. My husband is welcome to the triumph of knowing^ that, through the long years of our separation (especially during the first four years of our separation), I wavered and wept; that pride and bitter anger have not always been uppermost; that there have been hundreds of dreary evenings, and hopeless mornings, when even his home seemed to me better than no home—even his protection better than no protection—and all the thorns that can cumber a woman's natural destiny, better than the unnatural position of a separated wife. He is welcome to the triumph of knowing, that it is impossible to have felt more keenly than I did, the confused degradation of my position; not in the society where I am received (least there, because there my story was best known), but in other classes, which I have said I do not less respect. I was too unlike his picture of me, to be otherwise than often miserable; often willing to make a raft out of the wreck, and so drift back, even to a comfortless haven. There were moments, too, when I pitied him; when I believed his story of loneliness and repentance; and forgave without reservation, as I had forgiven before; there were times of family deaths; times when,—as he represents in his cruel letter,—we met by the sick-bed of a dear son, when I thought little of myself and my own wrongs, and yearned to make their lives happier who owed their existence to this broken marriage. It is quite true that I would sometimes willingly have returned to my husband; that my son desired it; and till that day in the County Court, friendliness of some sort (if not that return), remained both possible—and welcome.

But on that day, when in cold blood, for the sake of money, Mr. Norton repeated that which he knew to be false; the waters of Marah, by which he sought to whelm my soul, made the great gulf that shall divide us for ever! In that