"It all seems to me so hopeless. It is my own nature--- the stuff out of which I am cut--that's all wrong. I may promise my breath away that I will be discreet and gentle and well behaved, that I'll behave properly to people like Lady Parham, that I'll keep secrets, and not make absurd friendships with absurd people, that I'll try and keep out of debt, and so on. But what's the use? It's the _will_ in me--the something that drives, or ought to drive--that won't work. And nobody ever taught me or showed me, that I can remember, till I met you. In Paris at the Place Vendôme, half the time I used to live with maman and papa, be hideously spoiled, dressed absurdly, eat off silver plate, and make myself sick with rich things--and then for days together maman would go out or away, forget all about me, and I used to storm the kitchen for food. She either neglected me or made a show of me; she was my worst enemy, and I hated and fought her--till I went to the convent at ten. When I was fourteen maman asked a doctor about me. He said I should probably go mad--and at the convent they thought the same. Maman used to throw this at me when she was cross with me. "Well, I don't repeat this to make you excuse me and think better of me--- it's all too late for that--but because I am such a puzzle to myself, and I try to explain things. I _did_ love you, William--I believe I do still--but when I think of our living together again, my arms drop by my side and I feel like a dead creature. Your life is too great a thing for me. Why should I spoil or hamper it? If you loved me, as you did once--if you still thought _everything_ worth while, then, if I had a spark of decency left, I might kill myself to free you, but I should never do--what I may do now. But, William, you'll forget me soon. You'll pass great laws, and make great speeches, and the years when I tormented you--and all my wretched ways--will seem such a small, small thing.