charged with a blasting fate. This
knowledge, dear Reuben, which separates us so surely and so widely,
relieves me of the embarrassment which I might otherwise have felt in
telling you of my lasting gratitude, and (if as a sister I may say it)
my love. If your kind heart could so overflow with pity then, you will
surely pity me the more now; yet not _too much_, Reuben, for my pride as
a woman is as strong as ever. The world was made for me, as much as it
was made for others; and if I bear its blight, I will find some flowers
yet to cherish. I do not count it altogether so grim and odious a
world,--even under the broken light which shines upon it for me,--as in
your last visits you seemed disposed to reckon it.

"And this reminds me, Reuben, that I have told you frankly how the cloud
which overhung me has opened with a terrible surety. How is it with the
cloud that lay upon you? Is there any light? Ah, Reuben, when I recall
those days in which long ago your faith in something better beyond this
world than lies in it seemed to be so much stronger and firmer than
mine, and when your trust was so confident as to make mine stronger, it
seems like a strange dream to me,--all the more when now you, who should
reason more justly than I, believe in 'nothing,' (was not that your last
word?)--and yet, dear Reuben, I cling,--I cling. Do you remember the old
hymn I sung in those days:--

'Ingemisco tanquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultus meus;
Supplicanti parce, Deus.'

Even the old Doctor, who was so troubled by the Romish hymns, said it
must have been written by a good man."

Much more she writes in this vein, but returns ever and again to that
noble generosity of his,--her delicacy struggling throughout with her
tender gratitude,--yet she fails not to show a deep, earnest
undercurrent of affection, which surely might develop under sympathy
into a very fever of love. Will it not touch the heart of Reuben? Will
it not divert him from the trail where he wanders blindly? If we have
read his character rightly, surely this letter, in which a delicate
sensibility hardly veils a great passionate wealth of feeling, will stir
him to a new and more hopeful venture.

God send that the letter may reach him safely!

For a long time Adele has not written to Reuben, and it occurs to her,
as she strolls away toward the village post, that to mail it herself may
possibly provoke new town gossip. In this perplexity she presently
encoun