No woman was
ever more severely punished. My life is a burden to me,
and I may truly say that I look for no peace this side
the grave. I am conscious, too, of continued sin,--a
sin unlike other sins,--not to be avoided, of daily
occurrence, a sin which weighs me to the ground. But I
should not sin the less were I to return to him. Of course
he can plead his marriage. The thing is done. But it can't
be right that a woman should pretend to love a man whom
she loathes. I couldn't live with him. If it were simply
to go and die, so that his pride would be gratified by my
return, I would do it; but I should not die. There would
come some horrid scene, and I should be no more a wife to
him than I am while living here.
He now threatens me with publicity. He declares that
unless I return to him he will put into some of the papers
a statement of the whole case. Of course this would be
very bad. To be obscure and untalked of is all the comfort
that now remains to me.
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