has been for you!_ See, I am
writing those words--would I dare tell them to any other man
in all the world? Nay, surely not. But that I trust you, the
very writing itself is proof. And I write this to you, who
never can be to me what man must be to woman if either is to
be happy--the man to whom I can never be what woman must be
if she is to mean all to any man. Apart forever! We are
estranged by circumstance, sundered by that, if you please,
weak as those words seem. And yet something takes your soul
to mine. Does something take mine to you, across all the
wilderness, across all the miles, across all the long and
bitter months?

I say to you once more that in all this my demand upon you
has not been for myself, nor wholly for my father. Let me be
careful here.

This impassable gulf is fixed between us for all our lives.
Neither of us may cross it. But I have been desirous to see
you stand among men, where you belong. Do not ask me why I
wished that--you must never ask me. I am Mrs. Alston, even
as I write.

And as for you? Are you in rags as you read this? Are you
cold and hungry? Are you alone, aloof, deserted, perhaps
suffering, with none to comfort you? I cannot aid you. Nay,
I shall punish you once more, and say that it was your
desire--that you brought this on yourself--that you would
have it thus, in spite of all my intervention for you.

Moreover, you shall say to yourself always:

"She asked and I refused her!"

Nay, nay! I shall not be so cruel. I shall not say that at
all. Let me mark that out! Because, if I write that, you
will think I wish to hurt you. And, my friend, let me admit
the truth--the truth I ought not to lay upon you as any
secret--_I could never wish to hurt you._

They say that men far away in the wilderness sometimes long
for the sight of the face of a woman. See, now you have
that! I look up at you! What is your impulse? I am alone
with you--I am in your hands--treat me, therefore, with
honor, I pray you!

You must not raise my face to yours, must not bend yours to
mine. See now, measure my trust in you, Meriwether Lewis!
Estimate the great confidence I hold in you as a gentleman
because--do you not see?--a gentleman does not kiss the
woman whom he has at a disadvantage--t