And she submitted to all this humiliation, she allowed herself and her children to be dragged down lower and lower, she offended beyond reconciliation the rich, proud relatives who could have helped her, because they expressed their just resentment against her husband and their indignation at her obstinate martyrdom, all simply for love of this man who was quite unworthy of it. She had never heard of Individualism; the thought of a woman having a free soul, with an independent life of her own to work out, had probably never entered her head. She was one of those women who think that the whole duty of woman is towards her husband, be he good or bad, tender or cruel, devoted or selfish. That he has broken his marriage vows does not relieve her of the obligation of hers—she must be faithful to the end. And so Mrs. Meek suppressed her independent womanhood for the sake of a worthless man. There was no question of clinging to an ideal of her girlhood, that was broken long since, and Mrs. Meek was not an idealising woman; she saw things as they were, but she thought it was her duty to try and soften their brutality. If there was little of the old love remaining, there was the old slavish devotion, and the submission of her individuality to his caprice. She retained the mediæval notion that the husband was the wife’s lord and master, and when misfortunes, albeit of his own making, came upon him and involved her, she considered that it was all the more obligatory for her to unself herself, so as to give him the more consideration. She had joined her lot to his for better or for worse, and, as she would not have thought of leaving him had it been better, she would not desert him when fortune was at its worst. Let him humiliate her as he would, she would be a martyr in the sacred cause of wifely devotion. There are some women who must be martyrs at all cost, if not in earnest, then in make-believe. Generally there is more folly and egotism in their martyrdom than high-minded purpose, but sometimes there is a touch of the genuine angel. Now, I never met a more serious martyr than Mrs. Marshall Meek, and if there was a good deal of the fool about her self-sacrifice, there was something, too, of the angel—no ordinary woman could have been so absolutely without resentment with so much just cause. Whatever she suffered, and Heaven knows she must have suffered as few women in her station of life are called upon to suffer, never was she known to utter complaint. No indignity, no deprivation, could provoke her to reproach her husband; and when I have heard her sons and daughters grumble at their position, she would always chide them gently, and expect pity for their father’s misfortunes. For herself she sought none. God in His own good time would pity her, she would say, till then it was her duty to submit patiently.