intends to keep his passion for Nancy chaste, only wanting Nancy to continue to love him from afar, she torments him by making this wish impossible. She pretends to offer to divorce him so he can marry Nancy but informs Nancy of his sordid sexual history, destroying Nancy's innocent love for him. After Nancy's departure, Edward receives a telegram from her that reads, "Safe Brindisi. Having a rattling good time. Nancy." He asks Dowell to take the telegram to his wife, pulls out his pen knife, says that it's time he had some rest and slits his own throat. When Nancy reaches Aden and sees the obituary in the paper, she becomes catatonic. The novel's last section has Dowell writing from Edward's old estate in England where he takes care of Nancy whom he cannot marry because of her mental illness. Nancy is only capable of repeating two things—a Latin phrase meaning "I believe in an omnipotent God" and the word "shuttlecocks." Dowell states that the story is sad because no one got what they wanted. Leonora wanted Edward but lost him and ended in marrying the normal (but dull) Rodney Bayham. Edward wanted Nancy but gave her up then lost her. Dowell wanted a wife but ended up a nurse to two women. Dowell ends up generally unsure about where to lay the blame, but expressing sympathy for Edward because he believes himself similar to Edward in nature. The fact is he has been disengaged, a voyeur. While the other characters are flawed, he has never participated in life. He is revealed as less than the foolish innocent he represents himself as, when he walks away, leaving Edward to slit his throat with a very small pen knife. Textual analysis The novel has potential narrative inconsistencies that suggest different, hidden plot elements. For example, Dowell marries an heiress who ostensibly has a bad heart. He states repeatedly that he has no need or interest in her money—one might argue that he protests his lack of interest rather too much. Florence eventually dies, stated by Dowell to be suicide. If readers suspend their trust in the narrator, some may be left with the impression that the narrator is happy his wife dies, as he does little to prevent it; just as he does little throughout the entire book. Thus, behind the more or less explicit narrative lurks a possible counter-narrative