l that I would rather give up
any happiness in life than let her have the child. If you had read the
letters I have wasted upon her in these last few weeks! Letters which,
I can truly say, were written with my heart's blood--they would have
made a tigress human; and this woman---read what she answers me! I have
carried on this wretched correspondence behind your back, in the hope
of taking upon myself all that was bitter and humiliating--for what
words have I not stooped to use!--I have borne all the agony of these
last weeks, in order that I might at last lay nothing but the happy
results at your feet. Now read what sort of echo came to me from that
stony heart, and then say whether a man need necessarily be a master in
despairing, to give up all hope here!"

He went to the large closet, unlocked a drawer, and took out several
dainty-looking letters, that diffused a sweet perfume through the room.
Julie read one after the other, while he threw himself down on the sofa
again and stared at the ceiling. The letters were written in a regular,
delicate, clear hand, and in a style which might be taken as a model of
diplomatic art. There were no traces of mere declamation, of
complaining or accusing. The writer had resigned herself to accept an
unhappy fate, for she felt herself too weak and not cold-hearted enough
to take up the battle with him: a battle in which the man to whom she
had given all stood opposed to her. This she could prevail upon herself
to do, for it was only her own happiness that she was sacrificing. But
she could never be brought to give up her claim to her child. The day
might come when the longing for a mother's love might awaken in the
poor child's heart. Then no one should have it in his power to say to
her: "Your mother has no heart for you; she has given you over to
strangers." Upon passages like this, which were repeated in each
letter, especial care had been bestowed, reminding one, here and there,
of the stage, and the last rhetorical flourish just before the curtain
falls. The last sheet, which had been received only a few days before,
concluded as follows:

"I know all, all that you would so carefully conceal from me. It is not
only your wish to have done with the past once and forever, and to give
me back my freedom--for, according to your idea of my character, it
would cost me no effort whatsoever to live as if all were at an end
between us, especially as I do not bear your name on the stage