The following day Clive replied to his wife by cable: "As it seems to
make no unpleasant difference to you I have concluded to remain in New
York. Please take whatever steps you may find most convenient and
agreeable for yourself."

And, following this he wrote her: "I am inexpressibly sorry to cause you any new annoyance and
to arouse once more your just impatience and resentment. But
I see no use in a recapitulation of my shortcomings and of
your own many disappointments in the man you married.

"Please remember that I have always assumed all blame for our
marriage; and that I shall always charge myself with it. I
have no reply to make to your reproaches,--no defence; I was
not in love with you when I married you--which is as serious
an offence as any man can perpetrate toward any woman. And I
do not now blame you for a very natural refusal to tolerate
anything approaching the sympathy and intimacy that ought to
exist between husband and wife.

"I did entertain a hazy idea that affection and perhaps love
might be ultimately possible even under the circumstances of
such a marriage as ours; and in a youthful, ignorant, and
inexperienced way I attempted to bring it about. My notions
of our mutual obligations were very vague and indefinite.

"Please believe I did not realise how utterly distasteful any
such ideas were to you, and how deep was your personal
disinclination for the man you married.