Here she hesitated an instant.  It was not easy for her to mention John’s name; but it was only for a second that she hesitated.  With an impetuous eagerness unlike herself, she went on.

“Sally, you must not blame John.  He has struggled as constantly and nobly as a man ever struggled.  Neither must you blame Emma.  They have neither of them done wrong.  I have watched them both hour by hour.  I know my husband’s nature so thoroughly that I know his very thoughts almost as soon as he knows them himself.  I know his emotions before he knows them himself.  I saw the first moment in which his eyes rested on Emma’s face as they used to rest on mine.  From that day to this I have known every phase, every step, every change of his feeling towards her; and I tell you, Sally, that I pity John from the bottom of my heart.  I understand it all far better than you can, far better than he does.  He loves her at once far more and far less than you believe, and he loves me far more than you believe!  You will say, in the absolute idealization of your inexperienced heart, that this is impossible.  I know that it is not, and I wish I could make you believe it, for without believing it you cannot be just to John.  He loves me to-day, in spite of all this, with a sort of clinging tenderness born of this very struggle.  He would far rather love me with all his nature if he could, but just now he cannot.  I see very clearly where Emma gives him what he needs, and has never had in me.  I have learned many things from Emma Long this winter.  I can never be like her.  But I need not have been so unlike her as I was.  She has armed me with weapons when she least suspected it.  But she is not after all, on the whole, so nearly what John needs as I am.  If I really believed that he would be a better man, or even a happier one with her as his wife, I should have but one desire, and that would be to die.  But I think that it is not so.  I believe that it is in my power to do for him, and to be to him, what she never could.  I do not wonder that you look pityingly and incredulously.  You will see.  But in order to do this, I must leave him.”

I sprang to my feet.  “Leave him!  Are you mad?”

“No, dear, not at all; very sane and very determined.  I have been for six months coming to this resolve.  I began to think of it in a very few hours after I first saw him look at Emma as if he loved her.  I have thought of it day and night since, and I know I am right.  If I stay, I shall lose his love.  If I go, I shall keep it, regain it, compel it.”  She spoke here more hurriedly.  “I have borne now all I can bear without betraying my pain to him.  I am jealous of Emma.  It almost kills me to see him look at her, speak to her.”

“My poor, poor darling!” I exclaimed; “and I have been thinking you did not feel it!”

She smiled sadly, and tossed back the sleeve of her wrapper so as to show her arm to the shoulder.  I started.  It was almost emaciated.  I had again and again in the course of the winter asked her why she did not wear her usual style of evening dress, and she had replied that it was on account of her cough.