g to Grey. I am not that kind,
and it would do no good. But I loved you as I can never love any one
again, and there is always a thought of you in my mind, and I see
your face as it looked at me that day in Liverpool, when I acted the
part of a cowardly knave.

"I would kick myself for that if I could. You were too good for me,
Bessie, and I should have been a drag upon your life always. But
Heaven knows how much I miss you, and how at times, when the thought
comes over me that you are lost to me forever, and that another man
is enjoying the sweetness I once thought would be mine, I half wish
I were dead and out of the way of everything. Then I put that
feeling aside as unworthy of me, and say to myself that I am glad
you are happy, and that Grey is the noblest and best fellow in the
world, and the one of all others who ought to have you for his wife.
I shall never marry; that is settled. First, there is no woman in
the world I can ever look at after loving you; and, second, I am too
poor, and always shall be.

"And now I suppose you are thinking of Blanche, and wondering where
she is. She and mother had a jolly row, of which I fancy I was the
cause. Blanche told mother that all either she or I cared for was to
get her ten thousand a year, and by Jove, I believe she was right,
but I did not suppose she had sense enough to know it; trust a fool
sometimes to see through a stone wall.

"Well, mother told Blanche that _I_ did not even care for the ten
thousand pounds, that I loved you, and had been engaged to you, and
that you had discarded me. That was the straw too many, and
forthwith, Miss Blanche departed from Trevellian House, bag and
baggage, and I hear she is about to marry the eldest son of Lord
Haxton, a brainless idiot, not half as good-looking as I am. There
is conceit for you! But you know I was always rather vain of my
looks, and I do believe that the greatest terror poverty holds for
me is the knowing that I must wear seedy hats and threadbare coats,
and trousers a year behind. Maybe Grey will sometime send me a box
of his cast-off clothes.

"But what nonsense I am writing, and it is time I closed. I hear
father in his room, and guess it must be time for his tea, so I will
go in and join him. I hope either you, or Grey, or both, will write
to me and tell me you