of nature, and overcome by her habits of garrulity, arrived at a
frame of mind in which she found it almost necessary to tell me
all about it--nothing less than that. She said that her situation was
too unbearable with regard to me.

She proposed to tell me all, secure a divorce from me, and go with
Edward and settle in California. . . . I do not suppose that she was
really serious in this. It would have meant the extinction of all
hopes of Branshaw Manor for her. Besides she had got it into her
head that Leonora, who was as sound as a roach, was
consumptive. She was always begging Leonora, before me, to go
and see a doctor. But, none the less, poor Edward seems to have
believed in her determination to carry him off. He would not have
gone; he cared for his wife too much. But, if Florence had put him
at it, that would have meant my getting to know of it, and his
incurring Leonora's vengeance. And she could have made it pretty
hot for him in ten or a dozen different ways. And she assured me
that she would have used every one of them. She was determined
to spare my feelings. And she was quite aware that, at that date,
the hottest she could have made it for him would have been to
refuse, herself, ever to see him again. . . .

Well, I think I have made it pretty clear. Let me come to the 4th of
August, 1913, the last day of my absolute ignorance--and, I assure
you, of my perfect happiness. For the coming of that dear girl only
added to it all.

On that 4th of August I was sitting in the lounge with a rather
odious Englishman called Bagshawe, who had arrived that night,
too late for dinner. Leonora had just gone to bed and I was waiting