Things had been going on like this for a week--always playing to empty houses and our money lower and lower--when A. said to our other lady, Mrs. T., on a train in my presence: "I shall have to give him up, I suppose; he will have nothing to do with me." Mrs. T. said: "You give him up, do you?" and looked at me as if she were going to try her hand. A. said "Yes," and looked at me, smiling sadly. I don't know what motive prompted me--whether my vanity was alarmed at her threatened desertion or that she had really made some impression on me by her love, probably a little of both--but I said: "No, don't; come and sit down here," making way for her, and she joyfully came and nestled against me. From that time I ceased to treat her with ridicule, and kissed her at other times than when on the stage. I was subject still to black moods, and would not speak to her for hours sometimes, but she seemed content to walk with me and was infinitely patient. I had heard she was living with--if not married to--an actor. I asked her about him once, and she said she did not love him; she loved me and had never loved before. Her face had a touching sadness; her life had been unhappy and stormy, with no love and little rest in it. Her face, when she had lost her dissipated look and unhealthy pallor, was exquisite, delicate as a cameo. Love had improved her manners, too; she was more gentle and refined. I let things drift without thinking of the future, when one night after the performance--I was lying on the sofa and A. was sitting at my side, as usual--I suddenly thought, with the brutality that characterized me in these matters--"I will ask her to let me sleep with her." I still fought against any premonitory thought of self-abuse, but here, I thought to myself, is a chance of something better that will do me no harm and perhaps good. When she understood me she turned very red and walked away, shaking her head. But I let her understand that was the only way of retaining me, and finally, when they had all gone to bed, she gave herself to me, reluctantly and sadly; for she, too, had been drifting on without thinking of anything of this sort (she hated it at this time), but just living for her love of me, her first true love. Before this occurred, I must tell you, I had been so much better that I sometimes felt capable of doing anything, a sense of power and grasp of intellect which was combined with delicacy of feeling and sensitiveness to beauty, to skies and clouds and flowers. I seemed to be awakening to true manhood, to my true self. And at meals, it is worth recording, I commenced to have a distaste for meat.