After an absence I found myself one evening in a town where A. was performing. I went round to the back and they told me she had gone to a room in the hotel to change for another part. I followed and entered the room, with a glass of spirits I found that an effeminate young actor was bringing to her. She was half undressed, her beautiful arms and shoulders bare. My arrival was unexpected and she looked at me surprised, I thought coldly, as I reproached her for not keeping a promise she had made to me to touch no alcohol during the tour, but soon her arms were round my neck. She cried like a child. She was bigger and handsomer and healthier. There was not only an increased strength and size, but an increased delicacy and sweetness; her eyes and brows were lovely; there was an indescribable bloom and fragrance on her, such as the sun leaves on a peach; the traveling, country air, and freedom from coitus (had I known it) had enabled her to arrive at her true self, not only a beautiful woman, but a woman of fascination, of wit, vivacity and universal _camaraderie_. Her face was like the dawn; all my fears and jealousy left me like a cloud that melts before the sun. I remember the look on her face as she embraced me in bed that night. It had just the very smallest touch of sensuality, but was more like some beautiful child's who is being caressed by one she loves; this divine, drowsy-eyed, adorable look I had never seen on her face before--nor have I since. We fell back into our old lustful ways. Later on A. became ill and the black devil of epilepsy returned. I became gloomy.... A restlessness and selfish brutality came over me; our love and peace were gone. I persuaded A. to go to Melbourne and look out for an engagement. The day before she was to sail we went to Glenelg for a trip. The sea air, as often happened, precipitated A.'s fits. We had gone down to the pier and A. said she felt bad. I just managed to support her to the hotel before she became stiff, and I made some impatient remark (for she nearly dragged me down) which she heard, not being quite unconscious and said half incoherently and very pitiably: "Be kind, oh, be kind!" repeating it after consciousness left her. Her heart had been breaking all day at the prospect of parting, and also, I expect, because I was so ready to part with her. That moment was a crisis in my life. I was in a murderous humor, but she looked so unutterably wretched that it seemed impossible to be anything but kind. I made myself speak lovingly to her, in moments of partial consciousness, hired a room, carried her up, and nursed her and petted her all night. The act of self-control, and forcing myself to be kind whatever I felt, became a habit in time, a sort of second nature.