She was unhappy in her marriage but had no real options outside of it. She described her husband, a businessman who traveled frequently, as an “unpoetic soul” with a mean spirit. She was an intellectually curious and well-read woman who questioned religious authority and toyed with the then-radical ideas of atheism and evolutionism. She scribbled her illicit feelings for Dr. Lane in the pages of her diary, a volume meant to be private. But she also saw her passion as a force that exposed the limitations of her marriage.
