You will reply that in that case it must all be gross exaggeration on Lillie’s part.  But you, being a man, cannot understand how little satisfies a woman when her love is great enough.

Why, then, has Lillie left you, and why does she refuse to give you an explanation?  Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions?

I will tell you:  Lillie is in love with two men at the same time.  Their different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character.  If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby losing all his faculties, Lillie would have remained with you and continued to be a model wife and mother.  In the same way, had you been the victim of the accident, she would have clean forgotten Schlegel, and would have lived and breathed for you alone.

But fate decreed that the misfortune should be his.

Lillie had not sufficient strength to fight the first, sharp anguish.  She was bewildered by the shock, and felt herself suddenly in a false position.  The love on which her imagination had been feeding seemed to her at the moment the true one.  She felt she was betraying you, Schlegel, and herself; and since self-sacrifice has become the law of her existence, she was prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her love.

As to you, Professor Rothe, you have acted very foolishly.  You have done just what any average, conventional man would have done.  Your injured vanity silenced the voice of your heart.

You had the choice of two alternatives:  either Lillie was mad, or she was responsible for her actions.  You were convinced that she was quite sane and was playing you false in cold blood.  She wished to leave you; then let her go.  What becomes of her is nothing to you; you wash your hands of her henceforth.

You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your confidence.  How could you have found it in your heart to do this, instead of putting them off with any explanation rather than the true one!

Lillie knew you better than I supposed.  She knew that behind your apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature.  She understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your house the moment you discovered that she had a thought or a sentiment that was not subordinated to your will.

You have let her go, believing that she had been playing a pretty part behind your back, and that I was her confidante, and perhaps also the instigator of her wicked deeds.

Lillie has taken refuge with her children’s old nurse.

How significant!  Lillie, who has as many friends as either of us, knows by a subtle instinct that none of them would befriend her in her misfortune.

If you, Professor, were a large-hearted man, what would you do?  You would explain to the chief doctor at the infirmary Lillie’s great wish to remain near Schlegel until the end comes.