ked but never saw. What was the past to me
as soon as I met you? It was a dead thing altogether. I
became another woman, filled full of new life from you. How
could I be the early one? Why do you not see this? Dear,
if you would only be a little more conceited, and believe
in yourself so far as to see that you were strong enough to
work this change in me, you would perhaps be in a mind to
come to me, your poor wife.

How silly I was in my happiness when I thought I could trust
you always to love me! I ought to have known that such as
that was not for poor me. But I am sick at heart, not only
for old times, but for the present. Think--think how it do
hurt my heart not to see you ever--ever! Ah, if I could
only make your dear heart ache one little minute of each day
as mine does every day and all day long, it might lead you
to show pity to your poor lonely one.

People still say that I am rather pretty, Angel (handsome is
the word they use, since I wish to be truthful). Perhaps I
am what they say. But I do not value my good looks; I only
like to have them because they belong to you, my dear, and
that there may be at least one thing about me worth your
having. So much have I felt this, that when I met with
annoyance on account of the same, I tied up my face in a
bandage as long as people would believe in it. O Angel, I
tell you all this not from vanity--you will certainly know
I do not--but only that you may come to me!

If you really cannot come to me, will you let me come to
you? I am, as I say, worried, pressed to do what I will
not do. It cannot be that I shall yield one inch, yet I am
in terror as to what an accident might lead to, and I so
defenceless on account of my first error. I cannot say more
about this--it makes me too miserable. But if I break down
by falling into some fearful snare, my last state will be
worse than my first. O God, I cannot think of it! Let me
come at once, or at once come to me!

I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your
servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be
near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine.

The daylight has nothing to show me, since you are not here,
and I don't like to see the rooks and starlings in the
field, because I grieve and grieve to miss you who used to
see them with me.