made it difficult to feel that any one was necessary to her. I was
indignant at the way she had treated me. I was not a child to be
disposed of, and yet of my future she was disposing as though it were
a thing that could be tied to a string, and untied at will. Were she
well and strong, I would take matters in my own hands and make the
break. Surely I could do something! I had no earning capacity, but
other women had made their way, and I could make mine. If she were
perfectly well--

But she was not well. Through those first hours, and through most of
the hours of the night that followed, the knowledge of the insidious
disease that was hers was the high, hard wall against which I struck
at every turn of thought, at every possibility at which I grasped,
and in the dawn of a new day I knew I must not go away.

It was not easy to surrender. Always my two selves are fighting and
I wanted much to know more of life than I could know in the costly
shelter, controlled by custom and convention, wherein I lived. I had
long been looking through stained glass. I was restless to get out
and see clearly, to know all sorts of people, all conditions of life,
and the chance had seemed within my grasp--and now it must be given
up.

There are times when I am heedless of results, when I am daring and
audacious and count no cost, but that is only where I alone am
concerned. When it comes to making decisions which affect others I
am a coward. I lack the courage to have my own way at the expense of
some one else; and though through the night I protested stormily, if
inwardly, that I was not meant for gilded cages, but for contact, for
encounter, I knew I should yield in the end.