"ROCHESTER, . . . . .

"My dear husband,--I call you so because I have the right to, but, oh,
how I have abused that right that I am not worthy of, John. As I sit
writing to-day my heart is near breaking and my eyes are filled with
tears; and though I have written to you once and heard nothing from you,
still I cannot, will not, give you up. Oh, John, I am one of the most
miserable and unhappy beings that ever lived. I wish I were dead, and I
wish I had died before I ever used you as I did. I do from the bottom of
my heart. I shall write just I feel, and as I have felt since I left the
path of virtue and abused the only protector and friend,' for you were
mine for life.' I don't think any one, after doing as I have done, ever
has peace of mind. I am sure I do not. I dream of you most every night,
and the other night I had a fearful dream, and I will tell you some
other time what it was. John, I was talking about you to-day, and I was
saying if you would only take me back and live with me, that I would do
anything for you. I would beg on my hands and knees. I would do anything
to come back and live with you. I would be through life what you would
wish me to be. It lays in your power to determine my future end. If you
will forgive me and take me back, I will always do right, and you will
never have cause to repent it. You say to yourself that I promised once
before. This is only the second offense, and if we do not forgive each
other on earth for such trivial offense, 'as we may say,' when compared
with our wickedness in the eyes of God, how can we ever expect to be
forgiven for the manifold sins we commit daily? and, John, I am truly
repentant, and what I say is not an impulse of the moment, but I have
long thought it over, and God, who alone knows the heart, knows that I
want to be forgiven, and that I love you and want to live with you
again; and He knows that mine has been a sad and bitter experience, and
I am steadied down and profited by it. When I am in trouble and feel
unhappy, then it is that I think of you, and all that keeps me up is the
cheering thought that at some day you will forgive me and live with me
again; but if you should write that I need have no such thought, that
you were done with me forever, it would kill me; for, as I have said
before, all I care to live for is you, and I do not want to live if you
do not forgive me; but, John, you shall never be aught else to me than
my h