What my mother possessed included not only the personal estate she had inherited from her father, considerably augmented by her husband’s careful management, but books, furniture, and jewelry. The books and furniture I made over to my sister to remain in the two houses, the one in Montreal, the other on the Ottawa. Some of the jewelry I gave to her, to my sister in England, and to my two sisters-in-law, though keeping the bulk for my wife—when I got one. For I was now in a position to marry. Though my mother had had no great wealth, what she left me, together with the trust fund established by my father and what I earned, would assure me enough to live in at least as much comfort as Ralph Coningsby. I could, therefore, propose to Regina Barry and feel I could make a home for her. I had again come to the conclusion that if I asked her she would accept me. I make no attempt to analyze this feeling on her part, because I saw plainly enough that it was founded on mistake. That is to say, having developed an ideal of the man whom she could marry, she had nursed herself into the belief that I came up to it, when, as a matter of fact, I did not. Now I had seen enough of husbands and wives to know that in most marriages there is some such illusion as this, and that it can be successfully maintained for years. When the illusion itself has faded it can live on as the illusion of an illusion. By the time there is no illusion or shadow of illusion left at all it has ceased in the majority of cases to matter. Time has welded what mutual distaste might have put asunder, and the married state remains undisturbed. I was, therefore, obliged to face the consideration that if I married the woman I loved she would probably never discover what I felt it my duty to confess. Was it really, then, my duty to confess it? Since no one knew it but myself, was it not rather my duty to keep it concealed? Other men had secrets from their wives—especially those that concerned the days when they were unmarried—and all were probably the happier for the secrecy. Even Ralph Coningsby, who was the most model husband I could think of, had said that if he were to tell his wife all he could tell her about himself he would be ashamed to go home. There were weeks when I debated these questions every day and night, arriving at one conclusion by what I may call my rough horse sense, and at another by my instinct. Horse sense said, “Marry her and keep mum.” Instinct warned, “You can never marry her and be safe and happy with such a secret as this to come between you.” Throughout this wavering of opinion I knew that when the time came I should act from instinct. It wasn’t merely that I wanted to be safe; it was also that, all pros and cons apart, there was such a thing as honor. Not even to be happy—not even to make the woman I cared for happy—could I ignore that.