l,
for all the suffering I've experienced, I'd be willing to go through it
all again just to go over those five months. Every day together, at
nights on the lake-shore listening to the soft lap of the waters as the
silver sheen of the moon spread over the dainty curled waves; sometimes
in a hammock swinging among the trees talking of love and reading
poetry. Talk about Heaven! I just think there can't he a better time
among the angels.

But there is an end to all things. A violent illness, and his father
relenting, sent for the wayward son. I will always believe he loved me,
but he was eager to get home to his mother, and anxious to view Blanche
in the light of their new relationship. We had a whole series of parting
scenes,--tears and vows and kisses exchanged. We clung to each other
after the regulation fashion, and swore never to forget, and to write
every day. Then there was a final wrench. I went back to my old
life--he, away home.

For a while I was content, there were daily letters from him to read;
his constant admonitions to practice; his many little tokens to
adore--until there came a change,--letters less frequent, more mention
of Blanche and her love for him, less of his love for me, until the
truth was forced upon me. Then I grew cold and proud, and with an iron
will crushed and stamped all love for him out of my tortured heart and
cried for vengeance.

Yes, quite melo-dramatic, wasn't it? It is a dramatic tale, though.

So I threw off my habits of seclusion and mingled again with men and
women, and took up all my long-forgotten plans. It's no use telling you
how I succeeded. It was really wonderful, wasn't it? It seems as though
that fickle goddess, Fortune, showered every blessing, save one, on my
path. Success followed success, triumph succeeded triumph. I was
lionized, feted, petted, caressed by the social and literary world. You
often used to wonder how I stood it in all those years. God knows; with
the heart-sick weariness and the fierce loathing that possessed me, I
don't know myself.

But, mind you, Eleanor, I schemed well. I had everything seemingly that
humanity craved for, but I suffered, and by all the gods, I swore that
he should suffer too. Blanche turned against him and married his
brother. An unfortunate chain of circumstances drove him from his
father's home branded as a forger. Strange, wasn't it? But money is a
strong weapon, and its long arm reaches over leagues and leagues of land