MY SECRET LIFE
not be satisfied with for years?” she asked, as if I were a judge.
She went home to her mother. He appears to have been fond of her. Love of women was his great fault; but the disease so set her against him, that all his entreaties were useless. Nevertheless she was his wife, and getting into the mother’s house one day, when she was alone (Mary), he fucked her with violence—and violent it must have been, for she was as strong as a horse. Directly afterwards she left and went to service in London, confiding only her address to her mother, taking a false name, and writing him, that if ever he found her out and annoyed her, she would go abroad. Her husband made the mother a sort of promise to keep steady for three months, but failed in doing so, went to America, had never ceased to write affectionate letters which came to her through her mother, and had recently written to say he had made a large sum of money, and was coming home. He had sent money home to the mother with instructions to settle it on Mary how she liked, provided she would come back to him. Afterwards she showed me his letters; they were well written, and in a style above a man of his position in life.
She had lived in service ever since; with us she had then been a year and a half, and had had but two other places. One she left because a grown up son began to pay her too much attention. At the other the master—a married man—made love to her, and one day tried to force her. I know the last place, it was about three miles from us.
This news came like a cold bath on me. It suited my taste to have a woman in the house. The idea of
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