"... It will be dreadful at first, I know, and may be all three of
the darknesses will close around you for a time,--darkness of the
heart, darkness of the brain, and darkness of the eyes, but it
will clear away and the daylight will break, in which you will be
happier than in calling Miggie your wife, and knowing how she
shrinks from you, suffering your caresses only because she knows
she must, but feeling so sick at her stomach all the time, and
wishing you wouldn't touch her. I know just how it feels, for when
Arthur kissed me, or took my hand, or even came in my sight,
before the buzz got into my head, it made me so cold and faint and
ugly, the way the Yankees mean, knowing he was my husband when I
wanted Charlie Hudson. Don't subject Miggie to this horrid fate.
Be generous and give her up to Arthur. He may not deserve her more
than you, but she loves him the best and that makes a heap of
difference.
"It's Nina who asks it, Richard; dead Nina not a living one. She
is sitting on your knee; her arms are round your neck; her face
against yours and you must not tell her no, or she'll cling to you
day and night, night and day; when you are in company and when you
are alone.
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