"END OF THE CHAPTER."

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 187, 12 September 1914, Page 3

"END OF THE CHAPTER."

EX-M.P.'S FAREWELL TO HIS WIFE

A DRAMATIC LETTER.

A decree of restitution of conjugal Tights was granted last month by Mr Justice Bargrave Deane to Mrs Alice Margaret Kate Crawshay-Williams, the ■wife" of Mr Eliot Crawshay-Williams, formcrlv Liberal M.P. for Leicester.

A year ago Mr Crawshay-Williams •was co-respondent in a suit brought by Mr 11. Carr-Gomm, Liberal M.P. for liotherhithe.

: Mr Pridham Whipped, counsel for Mrs Crawshay-Williams, said -that the marriage took place at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on July 2;'., ,1908. There were two children, a boy five years old, and a girl two years old. The marriage was a happy one until Mr Crawshay-Williams formed an attachment for another lady, which resulted in a well-known divorce suit. For the time being the parties separated. Then, when Mrs Crawshay-Wil-liams came to the conclusion that she could bear to live with her husband again, she wrote to him as follows: — "Dear Eliot, —It is now nearly a year since we parted. I cannot go on any longer like this. ~ "Let us make a fresh start together if only for your children's sake." "It is Too Late." Mr Crawshay-Williams replied:— ' Your registered letter has reached irie. It is tragic to think how our life together, which was once so full of hope, has been shattered, and I cannot tell you of my sorrow for the suffering it must have all caused you. But I feel it is too late for us to attempt to come together again. At first I thought it right to do my best to preserve our home. I persuaded you to come back when you went away with the children. I wrote letter after letter asking you, for the sake of the past and of the future, to let us at least give every chance of our lives righting themselves. Not only' were you obdurate, but you refused even to talk things over. So matters had to take their course; and of all the blows I have had to bear the one you dealt me was the worst. Now, I see plainly, not only that you did not care for me then, but for long you had ceased to care for me, and that it is not possible you could care for me again. In such circumstances, life together would either be a farce or a tragedy. all our ties and associations have been severed by time or damaged by estrangement; while, on both sides, no doubt, new.bonds and interests have sprung up. /,... So far as I am concerned, no later incidents could ever make me forget the loyalty and devotion Kathleen has shown in the face of the disasters we have had to go through, or could ever wipe but my love and gratitude to her. I am sorry that my children will be brought up to a large extent away from their father; but that is better than that they should; be brought up in an atmosphere of strained hypocrisy.

I am sure that on l-eflee'tion you will see that I am right, and that time will proveithat this is the course which will make you happiest. You will soon be free to marry again—maybe this time to someone who can give you more than ever I did or could.

I do not see that you need be in any way unhappy in the lii'e that is before you. You do not care" for me, and my absence will prove not a loss, but a relief. You have a little house of your own, and you will have the children. As to money, you have £2OO a year yourself; your aunt, I understand, will let you have something, and I want to give you £3OO a year besides. Estimating on a three years' average of income, that will leave me about £SOO a year for myself. Even under jfchese conditions there may be rather a strain on my finances. .■ It is difficult to know what to say when putting an end, like this, to perliaps the most important chapter of rme's life; but I hope we are both old jsnough and sensible enough not to let the sordid, if inevitable, details of worldly affairs obscure jthe real emotions and facts which lie fcehind them.

What has been, has been, and nothing lean blot it out; whatever happens, you will never cease to live for me in a svorld of your own, as the person you V>nee were. I wish you well. —Eliot AJrawsh ay-Williams. Whispered Beading. ' When counsel, who had read the letter from Mr Crawshay-Williams very rapidly and in a voice hardly above a Whisper, had finished, the judge said, *'A most interesting letter." (Laughter.) His lordship added: .. "Fortunately I. had got a copy. I Vould not hear a word you said." Mrs Crawshay-Williams, giving evidence, said that she sent her letters asking her husband to return to where he was living in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. (3he still wanted her husband to come back to hen

The judge ordered him to do so within fourteen days.