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.
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