You have the facts for the trouble of finding them;
you have the points of view as far as I could ascertain or put them.
Let me imagine myself back, then, at the day of Maisie's death--or
rather at the moment of Florence's dissertation on the Protest, up
in the old Castle of the town of M----. Let us consider Leonora's
point of view with regard to Florence; Edward's, of course, I
cannot give you, for Edward naturally never spoke of his affair
with my wife. (I may, in what follows, be a little hard on Florence;
but you must remember that I have been writing away at this story
now for six months and reflecting longer and longer upon these
affairs.) And the longer I think about them the more certain I
become that Florence was a contaminating influence--she
depressed and deteriorated poor Edward; she deteriorated,
hopelessly, the miserable Leonora. There is no doubt that she
caused Leonora's character to deteriorate. If there was a fine point
about Leonora it was that she was proud and that she was silent.
But that pride and that silence broke when she made that
extraordinary outburst, in the shadowy room that contained the
Protest, and in the little terrace looking over the river.
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