. No, I
know what it is that not only makes you wish for a complete separation
from me, but that makes every delay unbearable. You have fallen into
the net of a dangerous beauty. If my old love for you were not stronger
than my self-love, there would be nothing I should more earnestly wish
for, or would more eagerly aid by all the means in my power, than your
marriage with this girl. She would justify me, would raise me to honor
again in your eyes, and would force from you the confession that you
had cast away your only true friend in order to nurse a serpent in your
bosom. But I am nobler than it is for my advantage to be: not, I admit,
altogether for your sake. The hope of seeing you return to me is too
tempting for me not to be willing to help you to have this experience.
But to relinquish our child to this stranger--who is said to be as
clever as she is beautiful, and as beautiful as she is heartless--to
give my blessed angel, who hovers near me in my dreams, to this
serpent--"

Julie had involuntarily read the last few lines aloud, as if she
scorned to soften down any accusation that was directed against
herself. Her disgust and indignation would not permit her to finish the
sentence--the letter fell from her hand.

"My dear friend," she said, "let us read no further. I must confess you
are quite right; this is hopeless. Kindness is thrown away upon such an
unnatural character as you so rightly called it, and force--where is
the force that we could use? But as for surrendering--hopelessly, and
without striking a blow--no matter how much talent I might have for
despairing, if I were opposed to this woman, I would either conquer or
die!"

He sprang up and seized her hand. "Julie!" he cried, "you put new life
into me. Never shall she enjoy such a triumph--rather let us flee to
the ends of the earth beyond the reach of her hand--rather let us go to
the Yankees and the red-skins, but with you at my heart and our child
in our arms--"

She shook her head earnestly. "No, no, no!" she said. "No self-imposed
banishments! It is a good thing I have my thirty-one years behind me.
Else this youthful enthusiast might succeed in the end in carrying me
off with him, and we should make a great mistake that would soon make
both him and me very unhappy. The land across the ocean is no place for
you, my beloved master. You have never cared to take part in the
modern, sentimental nonsense in our Old World; what sort of a figure
wo