r intention
of living far from the world in complete retirement. You, who have done
so much to lighten my penury, have been left in ignorance of my love;
but you will understand that absolute secrecy was essential.

This will explain to you why it is that, for the last year, we have seen
so little of each other. On the morrow of my wedding we shall be
parted for a long time; but, Daniel, you are of stuff to understand me.
Friendship can subsist in the absence of the friend. There may be times
when I shall want you badly, but I shall not see you, at least not in
my own house. Here again _she_ has forestalled our wishes. She has
sacrificed to me her intimacy with a friend of her childhood, who has
been a sister to her. For her sake, then, I also must relinquish my
comrade!

From this fact alone you will divine that ours is no mere passing
fancy, but love, absolute, perfect, godlike; love based upon the fullest
knowledge that can bind two hearts in sympathy. To me it is a perpetual
spring of purest delight.

Yet nature allows of no happiness without alloy; and deep down, in the
innermost recess of my heart, I am conscious of a lurking thought, not
shared with her, the pang of which is for me alone. You have too often
come to the help of my inveterate poverty to be ignorant how desperate
matters were with me. Where should I have found courage to keep up the
struggle of life, after seeing my hopes so often blighted, but for your
cheering words, your tactful aid, and the knowledge of what you had come
through? Briefly, then, my friend, she freed me from that crushing load
of debt, which was no secret to you. She is wealthy, I am penniless.
Many a time have I exclaimed, in one of my fits of idleness, "Oh for
some great heiress to cast her eye on me!" And now, in presence of
this reality, the boy's careless jest, the unscrupulous cynicism of the
outcast, have alike vanished, leaving in their place only a bitter sense
of humiliation, which not the most considerate tenderness on her part,
nor my own assurance of her noble nature, can remove. Nay, what better
proof of my love could there exist, for her or for myself, than this
shame, from which I have not recoiled, even when powerless to overcome
it? The fact remains that there is a point where, far from protecting, I
am the protected.

This is my pain which I confide to you.

Except in this one particular, dear Daniel, my fondest dreams are more
than realized. Fairest and n