Can you guess
the reason? The husband fell in love with me.
"I was innocent; I was blameless. He owned it himself to the
clergyman who was with him at his death. By that time years had
passed. It was too late to justify me.
"He was at an age (when I was under his care) when men are
usually supposed to regard women with tranquillity, if not with
indifference. It had been the habit of years with me to look on
him as my second father. In my innocent ignorance of the feeling
which really inspired him, I permitted him to indulge in little
paternal familiarities with me, which inflamed his guilty
passion. His wife discovered him--not I. No words can describe my
astonishment and my horror when the first outbreak of her
indignation forced on me the knowledge of the truth. On my knees
I declared myself guiltless. On my knees I implored her to do
justice to my purity and my youth. At other times the sweetest
and the most considerate of women, jealousy had now transformed
her to a perfect fury. She accused me of deliberately encouraging
him; she declared she would turn me out of the house with her own
hands. Like other easy-tempered men, her husband had reserves of
anger in him which it was dangerous to provoke.
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