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POLITICAL FAITHFU MELINDA MACLEAN few minutes before he left his house with Burgess, with the excuse thal he would be back that night. What: can he more troubled, but still irresolnie, than Melinda's ery: "Twill not admit that my husband is a traltor to his country? cae was nob an independent character. She was notably shy. Whonover she was in trouble over her husband or her diti- cult pregnancies she sent for her mother, nee Hor mother says that she sug- gested the slay in Switzerland, so that her grandehildren contd beyeducated al an international school in Geneva which she had orifinally sponsored. fat Molinca still felt her eile drck’s need for a father. She seriously contemplated ANATIC—OR WIFE? divorce and re-marriage—and that is unlikely to have been a ruse since she first unburdened herself of the idea to an adviser in hospital under circumstances of great nervous tension, ‘Then she seemed honestly to believe that no one would ‘ever | marry a weman with her un- * fortunate background: “ Who would marry a notorious woman. like me with three smail children? omeamnaed ND what of her own feeling for Donald Maclean? He had not deen a good hus- band. But they bad callgd themselves happy. Three weeks after Donald left her, when she was about th undergo a Cwsarean operatio! from which she might die, she wrote a letter. “My dearest Donald.” she said. “If you ener receive this Jetter it mill mean thot 7 shawt be here to tell you how much T love you and how really proud of you I am, My only regret is that perhaps you »-don't know haw I feel. “1 feel I lave behind and have had a wonderjul gift in your love and the existence of Fergic and Donald.” | ‘That, surely, is the tone of a woman in love, even after eleven tumultous years of marriage. ‘We are asked to say that it shows she was a Communist. But may it not be saying “Because of my love, I will try to accept your loyalty to Gom- munism 2) Aild she toot her children with ner, not because she wandrd hens brought up as Coln- munisis, but because they needed @ father... .