shall be kept. More than that, if you say that it is your will that
I seclude myself from these attentions, give up dancing, give up rides,
drives, walks, and even receiving visits, here, so be it. I will obey.
But write this to me, Steven,--not to Kate. I am too proud to ask her to
show me the letters I know she has received from you,--and there are
some she has not shown me,--but I cannot understand a man's complaining
to other persons of the conduct of the woman who is, or is to be, his
wife. Forgive me if I pain you: sometimes even to myself I seem old and
strange. I have lived so much alone, have had to think and do for myself
so many years while Kate has been away, that perhaps I'm not 'like other
girls;' but the respect I feel for you would be injured if I thought you
strove to guide or govern me through others; and of one thing be sure,
Steven, _I must honor and respect and look up to the man I marry_, love
or no love.

"Once you said it would kill you if you believed I could be false to
you. If by that you meant that, having given my promise to you to be
your wife at some future time, I must school myself to love you, and
will be considered false if love do not come at my bidding or yours, I
say to you solemnly, release me now. I may not love, but I cannot and
will not deceive you, even by simulating love that does not exist.
Suppose that love were to be kindled in my heart. Suppose I were to
learn to care for some one here. You would be the first one to know it;
for I would tell you as soon as I knew it myself. _Then_ what could I
hope for,--or you? Surely you would not want to marry a girl who loved
another man. But is it much better to marry one who feels that she does
not love you? Think of it, Steven: I am very lonely, very far from
happy, very wretched over Kate's evident trouble and all the sorrow I am
bringing you and yours; but have I misled or deceived you in any one
thing? Once only has a word been spoken or a scene occurred that you
could perhaps have objected to. I told you the whole thing in my letter
of Sunday last, and why I had not told Kate. We have not met since that
night, Mr. Hayne and I, and may not; but he is a man whose story excites
my profound pity and sorrow, and he is one of the two or three I feel
that I would like to see more of. Is this being false to you or to my
promise? If so, Steven, you cannot say that I have not given you the
whole truth.

"It is very late at night,--one o'