dead--alive
before my eyes. And whilst I stood in the first tumult of my amaze--
forgetful of everything but that it was you, my own, my beloved
Arthur, no spirit, but you in flesh and blood--whilst I yet stood
thus, stricken to silence by the shock of an unutterable joy--you
broke upon me with those dreadful words, so that I choked, feeling how
just they must seem to you, and could not answer.

"And yet it sometimes fills me with wonder and indignation to think of
them; wonder that you could believe me so mad as to throw away the
love of my life, and indignation that you could deem me so lost as to
dishonour it. They drove me mad, those words, and from that moment
forward I remember nothing but a chaos of the mind heaving endlessly
like the sea. But all this has passed, and I am thankful to say that I
am quite well again now.

"Still I should not have written to you, Arthur; I did not even know
where you were, and I never thought of recovering you. After what has
passed, I looked upon you as altogether lost to me for this world. But
a few days ago I went at her own request to see Lady Bellamy. All she
said to me I will not now repeat, lest I should render this letter too
wearisome to read, though a great deal of it was strange enough to be
well worth repetition. In the upshot, however, she said that I had
better write to you, and told me where to write. And so I write to
you, dear. There was also another thing that she told me of sad import
for myself, but which I must not shrink to face. She said that there
lived at Madeira, where you are, a lady who is in love with you, and
is herself both beautiful and wealthy, to whom you would have gone for
comfort in your trouble, and in all probability have married.

"Now, Arthur, I do not know if this is the case, but, if so, I hasten
to say that I do not blame you. You smarted under what must have
seemed to you an intolerable wrong, and you went for consolation to
her who had it to offer. In a man that is perhaps natural, though it
is not a woman's way. If it be so, I say from my heart, be as happy as
you can. But remember what I told you long ago, and do not fall into
any delusions on the matter; do not imagine because circumstances have
shaped themselves thus, therefore I am to be put out of your mind and
forgotten, for this is not so. I cannot be forgotten, though for a
while I may be justly discarded; it is possible that for this world
you have passed out of my reach, b