“My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years my father died too. I was rich enough now⁠—yet poor to hideous indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the doctors now discovered that my wife was mad⁠—her excesses had prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don’t like my narrative; you look almost sick⁠—shall I defer the rest to another day?”

“No, sir, finish it now; I pity you⁠—I do earnestly pity you.”