thus:

MY BELOVED CARNAC,

Your news of the death of Barode Barouche has shocked me. You will
understand when I tell you I have lived a life of agony ever since
you became a candidate. This is why: you were fighting the man who
gave you to the world.

Let me tell you how. I loved John Grier when I married him, and
longed to make my life fit in with his. But that could not easily
be, for his life was wedded to his business, and he did not believe
in women. To him they were incapable of the real business of life,
and were only meant to be housekeepers to men who make the world go
round. So, unintentionally, he neglected me, and I was young and
comely then, so the world said, and I was unwise and thoughtless.

Else, I should not have listened to Barode Barouche, who, one summer
in camp on the St. Lawrence River near our camp, opened up for me
new ways of thought, and springs of feeling. He had the gifts that
have made you what you are, a figure that all turn twice to see. He
had eloquence, he was thoughtful in all the little things which John
Grier despised. In the solitude of the camp he wound himself about
my life, and roused an emotion for him false to duty. And so one
day--one single day, for never but the once was I weak, yet that was
enough, God knows.... He went away because I would not see
him again; because I would not repeat the offence which gave me
years of sorrow and remorse.

After you became a candidate, he came and offered to marry me, tried
to reopen the old emotion; but I would have none of it. He was
convinced he would defeat you, and he wanted to avoid fighting you.
But when I said, 'Give up the seat to him,' he froze. Of course,
his seat belonged to his party and not alone to himself; but that
was the test I put him to, and the answer he gave was, 'You want me
to destroy my career in politics! That is your proposal, is it?'
He was not honest either in life or conduct. I don't think he ever
was sorry for me or for you, until perhaps these last few weeks; but
I have sorrowed ever since the day you came to me very day, every
hour, every minute; and the more because I could not tell John Grier
the truth.

Perhaps I ought to have told the truth long ago, and faced the
consequences. It might seem now that I would have ruined my home
life, and yours, and Barode Barouche's, and John Grier's