“Louis, I have never been so lonely in my life as I have been since Jose Querida died; alas! not because he has gone out of my life forever, but because, somehow, the manner of his death has made me realise how difficult it is for a woman alone to contend with men in a man’s own world.

“Do what she may to maintain her freedom, her integrity, there is always,—­sometimes impalpable, sometimes not—­a steady, remorseless pressure on her, forcing her unwillingly to take frightened cognisance of men;—­take into account their inexorable desire for domination; the subtle cohesion existent among them which, at moments, becomes like a wall of adamant barring, limiting, inclosing and forcing women toward the deep-worn grooves which women have trodden through the sad centuries;—­and which they tread still—­and will tread perhaps for years to come before the real enfranchisement of mankind begins.

“I do not mean to write bitterly, dear; but, somehow, all this seems to bear significantly, ominously, upon my situation in the world.

“When I first knew you I felt so young, so confident, so free, so scornful of custom, so wholesomely emancipated from silly and unjust conventions, that perhaps I overestimated my own vigour and ability to go my way, unvexed, unfettered in this man’s world, and let the world make its own journey in peace.  But it will not.

“Twice, now, within a month,—­and not through any conscious fault of mine—­this man’s world has shown its teeth at me; I have been menaced by its innate scorn of woman, and have, by chance, escaped a publicity which would have damned me so utterly that I would not have cared to live.

“And dear, for the first time I really begin to understand now what the shelter of a family means; what it is to have law on my side,—­and a man who understands his man’s world well enough to fight it with its own weapons;—­well enough to protect a woman from things she never dreamed might menace her.

“When that policeman came into my room,—­dear, you will think me a perfect coward—­but suddenly I seemed to realise what law meant, and that it had power to protect me or destroy me....  And I was frightened,—­and the table lay there with the fragments of broken china—­and there was that dreadful window—­and I—­I who knew how he died!—­Louis!  Louis! guiltless as I was,—­blameless in thought and deed—­I died a thousand deaths there while the big policeman and the reporters were questioning me.

“If it had not been for what Jose was generous enough to say, I could never have thought out a lie to tell them; I should have told them how it had really happened....  And what the papers would have printed about him and about me, God only knows.

“Never, never had I needed you as I needed you at that moment....  Well; I lied to them, somehow; I said to them what Jose had said—­that he was seated on the window-ledge, lost his balance, clutched at the table, overturned it, and fell.  And they believed me....  It is the first lie since I was a little child, that I have ever knowingly told....  And I know now that I could never contrive to tell another.