e one thing she should have done and a thing
Mrs. Dale would have agreed to, but fear and confusion deterred her. The
next thing was to write or talk to Suzanne, and because she mistrusted
her mood in Suzanne's presence she decided to write. She lay in bed on
Monday when Eugene was away at the office and composed a long letter in
which she practically gave the history of Eugene's life reiterating her
own condition and stating what she thought Eugene ought to do.

"How can you think, Suzanne," she asked in one place, "that he will be
true to you when he can ignore me, in this condition? He has not been
true to anyone else. Are you going to throw your life away? Your station
is assured now. What can he add to you that you have not already? If you
take him, it is sure to become known. You are the one who will be
injured, not he. Men recover from these things, particularly from an
infatuation of this character, and the world thinks nothing of it; but
the world will not forgive you. You will be 'a bad woman' after this,
irretrievably so if a child is born. You think you love him. Do you
really love him this much? Read this and stop and think. Think of his
character. I am used to him. I made my mistakes in the beginning, and it
is too late for me to change. The world can give me nothing. I may have
sorrow and disgust, but at least I shall not be an outcast and our
friends and the world will not be scandalized. But you--you have
everything before you. Some man will come to you whom you will love and
who will not ask and willingly make a sacrifice of you. Oh, I beg you to
think! You do not need him. After all, sorry as I am to confess it, I
do. It is as I tell you. Can you really afford to ignore this appeal?"

Suzanne read this and was greatly shocked. Angela painted him in a
wretched light, as fickle, deceitful, dishonest in his relations with
women. She debated this matter in her own room, for it could not help
but give her pause. After a time, Eugene's face came back to her,
however, his beautiful mind, the atmosphere of delight and perfection
that seemed to envelop all that surrounded him. It was as though Eugene
were a mirage of beauty, so soft, so sweet, so delightful! Oh, to be
with him; to hear his beautiful voice; to feel his intense caresses!
What could life offer her equal to that? And, besides, he needed her.
She decided to talk it out with him, show him the letter, and then
decide.

Eugene came in a day or two,