t must, arrive too late. Yet I must
send it, even under that chance. I must write it, though it
ruin all my happiness. Shall it come to you too late, others
will take it to my husband. Then this secret--the one secret
of my life--will be known. Ah, I hope this may come to your
eyes, your living eyes; but should it not, _none the less I
must write it_.

What matter? If it should be read by any after your death,
that would be too late to make difference with you, or any
difference for me. After that I should not care for
anything--not even that then others would know what I would
none might ever know save you and my Creator, so long as we
both still lived.

This wilderness which you love, the wilderness to which you
fled for your comfort--what has it done for you? Have you
found that lonely grave which is sometimes the reward of the
adventurer thither? If so, do you sleep well? I shall envy
you, if that is true. I swear I often would let that thought
come to me--of the vast comfort of the plains, of the
mountains--the sweep of the untiring winds, sweet in the
trees and grasses--or the perpetual sound of water passing
by, washing out, to the voice of its unending murmurs, all
memory of our trials, of our sins.

What need now to ask you to come back? What need to reproach
you any further? How could I--how can I--with this terrible
thought in my soul that I am writing to a man whose eyes
cannot see, whose ears cannot hear?

Still, what difference, whether or not you be living? Have
not your eyes thus far been blind to me? Have not your ears
been deaf to me, even when I spoke to you direct? It was the
call of your country as against my call. Was ever thinking
woman who could doubt what a strong man would do? I suppose
I ought to have known. But oh, the longing of a woman to
feel that she is something greater in a man's life even than
his deeds and his ambitions--even than his labors--even than
his patriotism!

It is hard for us to feel that we are but puppets in the
great game of life, of so small worth to any man. How can we
women read their hearts--what do we know of men? I cannot
say, though I am a married woman. My husband married me. We
had our honeymoon--and he went away about the business of
his plantations.