Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/140

less and I suffer more. He is away from home all day and many evenings; sometimes most evenings of the week. And he travels more or less on his professional business or on political errands. I try to think that this is all right, and that it is always necessary. In my soul I know it is not. I am already very lonely. I am perplexed and troubled. I used always to feel beloved. Now I feel hurt much of the time. Such a state as this chills a woman to the heart. My husband sometimes calls me cold; he will say this when I am quivering with wounded love, when I am nothing but one nerve of passionate tenderness bruised. I do not reply; I let him say so. I have tried to make him see how it really is. I have tried so often that I have got through. I am beginning to think that he cannot understand.

Perhaps I shall be happier in our new house. And by and by—in October, when I am well again—perhaps he will be different; he will stay at home more; we shall be together as we used to be; and he will be so happy, we shall be so united, that I shall be glad again. I must hold this truth fast; for, from very physical weakness, and a little, I think, from loneliness, it eludes me. The kingdom of love is within us, and "only our own souls can sever us."