A few days later, I received a letter from Mrs. Strickland, which said that I hope I could go to her house that night. However, I found that she was the only one in her house, and no one else was there. Her clothes were all black, which looked very simple, reminding her of her pitiful experience. Although this way of wearing reflected her sad mood, it was really not easy for her to wear a dress that suited etiquette. I didn't have much experience at the time and was very surprised.

"I remember you promised me that if I need to ask you, you will help me," she said.

"Yes."

"I want to know the current situation of Strickland. Are you willing to help me? You just need to go to Paris."

"Am I?"

This scared me very much. Strickland and I had only one meeting. I had no idea what she had plans.

"Fred said he was going," she said tremblingly, "but I know his personality, he will definitely mess up the matter. I don't know who else can ask for help except you."

Fred is Colonel McAndrew. After hearing her words, I felt that I was obliged to do anything, otherwise I would be too sympathetic.

"But I don't know your husband, and we have no more than words of conversation. He probably doesn't know me either. If I go to him, he might not be too lazy to see me."

"It's okay, at least you won't lose much." Mrs. Strickland smiled.

"So can I ask? What do you want to ask me to do with him?"

At this time, she began to talk about him.

"In my opinion, you are very strange to him, which is more beneficial. He couldn't reach an agreement with Fred. He always thought Fred was a fool because he didn't understand the soldiers. Fred would be furious when he saw him, and then argue with him and do things worse. You can tell him that I asked you to go, you were the representative of me, so that he would not turn you out."

"To be honest, I haven't known you for a long time," I replied, "and I don't know the whole situation in particular. Such things are really hard to do. Besides, I'm not very good at inquiring about other people's affairs. If you want to see him, why don't you go see him in person?"

“He wasn’t alone there.”

I had nothing to say, so I went to visit Charles Strickland. When I handed over the card, he glanced at me.

"What's the point of doing you come?"

"I want to talk to you about your wife."

"Is that true? I think you won't meddle in other people's business when you have a few more years of dinner. Look, there is a door on the left, where you can go back. Goodbye."

I felt my dignity swept away and couldn't raise my head. I wanted to go back to London a few days later, at least wait until Mrs. Strickland's mood recovered. After I got back, I quietly observed her expression. She lowered her head without saying a word, and was falling into deep thought. But she quickly raised her head, first sighed deeply, and then smiled at me.

"It's so sudden," she said. "I never thought that this day would happen in the past seventeen years. I know Charles very well. He is honest and honest and will not be obsessed with others at all. Moreover, we rarely have conflicts. Although we have many differences in interests and hobbies, that's not a problem at all."

"You know that person..." I tatively said, "Is that person's identity? It's the person who walked with him."

"I don't know. Speaking of which, it seems that no one knows it. This is really strange. Logically, if a man does something against his family, he will always reveal clues and be known to others, such as when he goes out to eat, he is seen by people in the store. There will always be people who know it beforehand, and kind-hearted people will remind her. But I didn't know it in advance--no one reminded me. When I received his letter, I couldn't believe it. I always thought he was extremely happy to live with me."

She couldn't continue and began to sob in a low voice. I felt very sympathetic about her experience. After a while, she stopped crying. "I can't make people laugh," she wiped the tears on her face and continued, "The first thing to solve now is to think about what to do in the future."

That being said, she seemed to have no clue. She talked about some time ago, and then began to recall their first acquaintance and marriage. But after hearing her chattering for so long, my mind could finally outline the scene of their lives. I think I was not wrong before. Mrs. Strickland's father was a civilian in India when he was young. After he retired, he settled in the British countryside, but every August he would take his family back to Isteborg.

Eun went on vacation. They met there. She was twenty years old that year, and Strickland was only three years older than her. They had a great time together, playing nis, taking walks, and lising to wandering singers singing. They felt good about each other, so later he formally proposed, and she was not surprised at all. After marriage, they decided to settle in London. At the beginning they lived in Hampsted, and as living conditions improved, they moved to the city. After a few years, they gave birth to two children.

"He loves our children very much. I think even if he is tired of me, he will not have the heart to abandon his cute children. I really don't know what he thinks. To this day I can't believe what happened, it's like a dream."

Speaking of this, she took the initiative to take out the letter he wrote. Actually, I was very curious about this letter.

Dear Ami:

Please rest assured, everything at home is arranged, and you don’t have to worry about you. I have told her what you wanted to tell Anne before. You don’t have to worry about not having dinner after you come home with your children, because it is ready. But I can’t welcome your arrival in person. I have now made up my mind to no longer live with you. I will leave for Paris tomorrow morning. I plan to send this letter to me when I arrive in Paris. I will never come back. I will not change my mind.

It's always yours, Charles Strickland

"There is no reason to explain, nor does it express guilt. You think he is too inhuman?"

"In my opinion, this letter is indeed very strange." I answered honestly.

"The only reason is that he is no longer the person I know. Over the years, there may be a woman who has made him obsessed with him and lost himself. Anyway, she must have completely changed him. Now things are clear, and this matter is definitely not something that happened overnight. Maybe they have known each other a long time ago."

"Why are you going to find something new when you say that?"

"Fred has found the handle. My husband goes to the club to play bridge every week, and Fred happens to know a member of the club. Once they talked about playing bridge, the member was surprised to say that he had never seen Charles playing cards. Obviously, the so-called playing bridge is an excuse, and he used this time to be with that woman."

I didn't say anything, and then I thought of the innocent children.

"How should I explain to Robert? This is really hard to explain." I said.

"Ah, I didn't tell them both. After all, they went to school as soon as we got back to the city. I preded to be calm and told them that their father had gone to work in another place."

It is not easy for a person to have such a big secret, and to act like he is no different from usual. It is really hard to pred that everything is safe. Moreover, not only does the children need to spend money to go to school, but there are still many places for the three of them to spend money in the future. How much effort does she have to put in! Mrs. Strickland's voice was hoarse.

"My poor children, what will they do in the future? How should our family live?"

She suppressed her pain, and sometimes clenched her hands and sometimes loosened them.

"Well, if you think going to Paris will make things better, I'll definitely go there. But you have to tell me what I need to do to go there."

"I hope he's back."

"But Colonel McAndrew said, you decided to divorce him."

"No, I will never divorce him." She suddenly said angrily, "Tell me how to tell him that he should not even think about marrying that woman! I am as stubborn as him. For the sake of the child's good, I will definitely not divorce him."

I guess that her last sence was to tell me her attitude. However, it was not so much because of maternal love, but rather because of jealousy.

"Do you still have love for him?"

"I don't know, I just want him to come back. If he comes back, I will forgive him. In any case, we have lived together for seventeen years. I am a generous woman. Although he lied to me before, I can leave it alone. As long as he is still rational, he will know that a temporary obsession is not reliable. If he is lost now, this page can be turned over, and we can still restore our previous life without being uttered by outsiders."

Mrs. Strickland cares about rumors so much that it makes me feel cold. Before that, I never thought that for a woman, the opinions of others are so important and can even affect life. However, I think that her attitude will undoubtedly prevent them from living in harmony, and they will always live in suspicion.

Strickland did not hide his residence from the outside, so it was not difficult to find him. In order to express his anger, his partner once wrote him a letter to accuse him. Strickland quickly replied to a letter, telling him where he lives so that he can settle the score with himself at any time. It turned out that he lived in a hotel.

"I don't know about this hotel," said Mrs. Strickland, "but Fred is familiar with it. He told me that it is expensive."

At this time, her face looked very bad. I guess she must have fallen into imagination. Her husband might be living a luxurious and luxurious life. She imagined that he was living a life of singing every night, and his daily entertainment activities were to go to racetracks and theaters.

"He is no longer young and cannot always live this kind of life, otherwise he will not be able to bear it," she said. "After all, he is an older person. If he is still young, I can barely understand it. But it is a different matter when he is at his age. On the one hand, his children are almost adult; on the other hand, his own body cannot bear it." It can be seen that she is really in pain.

"Please tell him that his family is still waiting for him. Nothing has changed at home, but something has changed. If he is not by my side, I will not be able to survive. I would rather commit suicide. I want to have a good talk with him and talk about our past. When the children come home from school, what should I do if they ask my father? His room has not changed at all. His room is calling him, and we are calling him."

It seems that I don't need to worry about how to speak then, because she has told me all of them. She also taught me how to deal with Strickland's questions.

"You will help me with all your might, right?" she begged me, "Please tell him my status."

I knew she needed me to keep him. No matter what method, as long as it could arouse his sympathy, things would probably be saved. She kept crying, and I felt very sad, and at the same time she was very angry at what Strickland did.

So I agreed to her request and promised that I would do my best until I got things done before I came back. At this time, the night was drooping outside the window, and we all said we were tired, so I said goodbye to her.
Chapter completed!