Now I was clearer. I began to talk. I told him he must never come there again alone. Then, as I thought of Mrs. Richards and the boys, and how they loved and trusted me, I broke down completely. I felt I could never again look into their faces; never enter their home, nor again have the happy times we had enjoyed. This he opposed vigorously. He asked nothing for himself, he said, but for her and the boys he pleaded that I would not be so cruel: they needed me; I had brightened their lives; he was more patient and kind when I was there, even when he knew I was coming; I helped him to control his temper, they all knew it--if I deserted them now, it would add to their misery. I suppose I then promised to go to their home as usual. I, having completely rallied by that time, he left me, himself looking worn and penitent, and showing unfeigned concern at my wretchedness. As I opened the door to let him out, every sound in the quiet building, every fall of his foot down the stairs, struck me with dread; and when I found myself alone in the room, my terror increased. I did not dare to move; every sound I made increased this feeling; I was afraid to undress; afraid to open out the operating-chair and make my bed; so, wrapping a blanket around me, I reclined on the half-opened chair and slept from sheer exhaustion. When I awoke, the terrible consciousness was there that _it was all true_; that it was not an ugly dream. Then I drank my first bitter draught of the cup of life. I had thought I had known sorrow before; thought I had suffered; but then, then, I knew that never until then had I realized what suffering is. “It _isn’t_ true”--“It _is_ true,”--fast upon the one thought, said as though the very force with which I uttered it would undo the truth, would follow the other inexorable sentence, “It _is_ true.” The events of the next few days, even my first meeting with Mrs. Richards, are gone from my recollection. I remember one thing, though: The next day, at my boarding-place, at dinner, a little Chatterbox of a woman spoke of how pale and wretched I looked, then, babbling on, told me that, having dropped into Mrs. Richards’s that morning, she had found her suffering from a severe sick headache. It seemed as if I must cry out in remorse and despair. In my hypersensitive condition I felt directly responsible for her suffering, though she had suffered similarly for years. I seemed made up of two entities, the one being stabbed by this chatter, and by my own self-reproaches, and the other calmly and indifferently replying to my table-mate, discussing the most commonplace affairs. I marvelled at my own unmoved exterior, marvelled at everything going on the same in the street, at the office, everywhere--the same as the day before--when all was so changed in me!