The Moon and Sixpence

"Don't you know why he married her?"

I shook my head.

"She was a governess in the family of some Roman prince, and
the son of the house seduced her. She thought he was going to
marry her. They turned her out into the street neck and crop.
She was going to have a baby, and she tried to commit suicide.
Stroeve found her and married her."

"It was just like him. I never knew anyone with so
compassionate a heart."

I had often wondered why that ill-assorted pair had married,
but just that explanation had never occurred to me. That was
perhaps the cause of the peculiar quality of Dirk's love for
his wife. I had noticed in it something more than passion.
I remembered also how I had always fancied that her reserve
concealed I knew not what; but now I saw in it more than the
desire to hide a shameful secret. Her tranquillity was like
the sullen calm that broods over an island which has been
swept by a hurricane. Her cheerfulness was the cheerfulness
of despair. Strickland interrupted my reflections with an
observation the profound cynicism of which startled me.

"A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her," he said,
"but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on
her account."

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