dismal analogy between my
blasted life and that of the discrowned Persian Queen. Be that as it
may, if I miss a name I surely shall not miss the equity that man
denies me. '_So long as ye both shall live_.' When I look out in
springtime, over the blossoming earth, daisies, and violets, and
primroses range themselves into lines that spell out these hated words
of an ever-echoing vow, and if, in midnight hours, I raise my weary
eyes, the sleepless stars revengefully group themselves, and flash back
to me, in burning characters, '_Till death us do part_.' Up yonder,
behind sun, and planet, and nebulae, I shall look God in the face, and
pointing to my withered heart and blighted life, can say truly, 'At
least I kept the ruins free from perjury; there, at your feet, is the
oath unsullied, that I called you to accept on the awful day when I
knelt at your altar.' Love, honor, and obedience, Maurice Carlyle's
unworthiness rendered impossible; but the vow which consecrated and
set me apart, which forbade the thought that other men might offer
homage and affection, or even ordinary tributes of admiration, I
have kept sacredly and faithfully. I might have plunged into the
whirlpool of fashionable life, and found temporary oblivion of my
humiliation and disappointment; but from such a career my whole
being revolted, and in seclusion I have dragged out a dreary series of
years that can scarcely be termed life. Recently I have been honored by
several proposals for a divorce, on condition of an additional
settlement of money upon my eminently chivalric and devoted husband;
but my invariable reply has been, _human legislation is impotent to
cancel the statutes of Almighty God, which declare that only death
can free what Jehovah has joined together_, and the legal provisions
of man crumble and shrivel before the divine command, '_For the woman
which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he
liveth_.' With what impatience, what ceaseless yearning, I await the
cold touch of that deliverer who alone can sever my galling,
detested fetters, none but the God above us can understand and
realize. The eagerness with which I once anticipated my bridal hour
does not approximate the intensity of my longing for the day of my
death. O merciful God! surely, surely, I have been sufficiently
tortured, and the tardy release can not be far distant."

She raised her face skyward, as if invoking Divine aid, but her wan
lips were voic