due meaning. Following the accounts of Victor's attempted suicide (III:4:46) and his
father's questioning earlier in this chapter whether his son was not actually mad,
(III:5:5) these symptoms, an alteration between violent rage and withdrawn lethargy,
point to a serious manic-depressive condition. For Elizabeth this has to be extraordinarily
trying: the depressed state Victor was in when he had left her, both upon undertaking
the excursion to Chamounix (II:1:10 and II:1:14) and in the aftermath of his encounter
with the Creature (III:1:1), had been serious enough, but the extremity into which
it has developed hardly bodes well for her future with him. Even so, Elizabeth reverts
to her characteristic vocation of nurse.