"This all seems only laughable to you. I can hear you snigger over it--and me! Laugh at me, but don't hate me as I do myself. A man nearing forty years of age, not particularly anything--either clever, or eloquent, or good-looking, or attractive. Don't I know it all? I can't write of it----
"And yet this one thing more I must tell you before I close.
"As I parted from the sensible, self-respecting, self-contained Jessica the other day--I protest to you my reliance on her womanly dignity and sturdy reasonableness has been to me as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land--I ran against her father, the old vicar. He put his hand on my shoulder, and looked at me with a kind of playful reproof in the face.
"'Ah, how long is this shilly-shallying to go on?' he asked.
"... I broke off there to see Mrs Carter. It has hitherto been a relief to see her. The only laughing I've done since I've been here has been with her. She did not laugh to-day. She came to me because she had no other friend, she said. She could not trust the gabbling womankind. Her husband had changed to her. He had become all at once unreasonable and unkind. He had told her that he did not trust her. He would no longer allow her to go to church, he had forbidden her to receive me again in his house.
"In utter bewilderment I could only ask her why. And then she burst into tears, and then--then there was another scene.
"Mrs Bust was no doubt listening at the door. At any rate she burst in upon us. I, for my part, was not sorry, but poor Mrs Carter--! Poor? Fool, idiot!
"She is forty years of age, her husband is a decent, honourable sort of fellow who worships her----
"If it were not for Jessica--good, matter-of-fact, reliable Jessica, welcome contrast to these hysterical, half-mad women, who laugh at and despise her--where should I be, Charles?...
"You have been a true friend to me and to her. I shall see you soon (D.V.), and then no doubt I shall say--nothing. But you will remember that I am grateful to you to the last drop of my heart's blood--and so is she.
"Now as for B.... The finish has come; it came to-day. Let us sing and give thanks with the best member that we have! All the same, the end has been a shock, and I wish it had come in some other way.
