but I have been without the power--the
moral force. Surely I must write, and get him to come and assist me.

March 14.--She continually wonders why he does not come, the five months
of his enforced absence having expired; and still more she wonders why he
does not write oftener. His last letter was cold, she says, and she
fears he regrets his marriage, which he may only have celebrated with her
for pity's sake, thinking she was sure to die. It makes one's heart
bleed to hear her hovering thus so near the truth, and yet never
discerning its actual shape.

A minor trouble besets me, too, in the person of the young Scripture
reader, whose conscience pricks him for the part he played. Surely I am
punished, if ever woman were, for a too ingenious perversion of her
better judgment!

April 2.--She is practically well. The faint pink revives in her cheek,
though it is not quite so full as heretofore. But she still wonders what
she can have done to offend 'her dear husband,' and I have been obliged
to tell the smallest part of the truth--an unimportant fragment of the
whole, in fact, I said that I feared for the moment he might regret the
precipitancy of the act, which her illness caused, his affairs not having
been quite sufficiently advanced for marriage just then, though he will
doubtless come to her as soon as he has a home ready. Meanwhile I have
written to him, peremptorily, to come and relieve me in this awful
dilemma. He will find no note of love in that.

April 10.--To my alarm the letter I lately addressed to him at Venice,
where he is staying, as well as the last one she sent him, have received
no reply. She thinks he is ill. I do not quite think that, but I wish
we could hear from him. Perhaps the peremptoriness of my words had
offended him; it grieves me to think it possible. I offend him! But too
much of this. I must tell her the truth, or she may in her ignorance
commit herself to some course or other that may be ruinously
compromising. She said plaintively just now that if he could see her,
and know how occupied with him and him alone is her every waking hour,
she is sure he would forgive her the wicked presumption of becoming his
wife. Very sweet all that, and touching. I could not conceal my tears.

April 15.--The house is in confusion; my father is angry and distressed,
and I am distracted. Caroline has disappeared--gone away secretly. I
cannot help thinking that I know where she is gone