d down and degraded? No, sir!
God gave me a higher consciousness--a purer spirit--a nobler
individuality! You should have mated one of a different stamp from
me!

"And yet I pity you, Leon Dexter! This web of trouble, which your
own hands have woven around your life, will fetter and gall you at
every step in your future journey. I have not left you in a spirit
of retaliation; but simply because the natural strain of repulsion
was stronger than all the attractive forces that held us together. I
only obeyed a law against which weak nature strove in vain. Were it
in my power, I would make all your future bright with the warmest
sunshine. But over your future I have no control--yet, sadly enough,
are our destinies linked, and the existence of each will be a thorn
in the other's heart.

"I have not much strength left. The contest has nearly extinguished
my life. This is the last struggle I shall have with you. My first
weak thought was to return your letter without a word in reply. But
that would have been a wrong to both; and so I have made you this
communication, and you must regard it as final. Farewell, unhappy
Leon Dexter! I would have saved you from this calamity, but you
would not let me! May He who has permitted you thus to drag down the
temple of domestic happiness, and bury yourself amid the ruins, give
you, in this direful calamity, a higher than human power of
endurance. May the fierce flames of this great ordeal, find gold in
your character beyond the reach of fire. Farewell, forever! and may
God bless and keep you! The prayer is from a heart yet free from
guile, and the lips that breathe it upward are as pure as when you
laid upon them the marriage kiss! God keep them as guileless and as
pure! Amen!

"JESSIE."

Dexter accepted the decision of his wife as final. What else was
left for him? He would have been the dullest of men not to have seen
the spirit of this answer, shining everywhere through the letter.
Something more than feebly dawned the conviction in his mind, that
he had foully wronged his wife, and that the fearful calamity which
had overtaken him in the morning of his days, was of his own
creating. He did not again attempt to see her; made no further
remonstrance; offered no kind of annoyance. A profound respect for
the suffering woman who had abandoned him, took the place of
indignation against her. In silence he sat down amid his crushed
hopes and broken idols, and waited for light to guid