t and the night wind and the deep,
sweet silence have gone! There is a great shaft of yellow
light in the sky, and a bank of purple clouds where the sun
has risen. Only the perfume of your roses lying crushed in
my lap remains to prove to me that it has not all been a
very sweet dream. Dearest, I have a secret to tell you,--the
sorrow of my life. The time has come when you must, alas!
know it. Last night it was enough for me to hear you tell me
of your love! Nothing else in the world seemed worthy of a
moment's thought. But as you were leaving, you whispered
something about our marriage. How sweetly it sounded,--and
yet how bitterly! For, dear, I can never marry you. I am
already married! I can see you start when you read this. You
will blame me for having kept this secret from you. Very
likely you will be angry with me. Only for the love of God
pity me a little!

"My story is so commonplace. I can tell it you in a few
sentences. I married when I was seventeen at my father's
command, to save him from ruin. My husband, like my father,
was a city merchant. I did not love him, but then I did not
know what love was. My girlhood was a miserable one. My
father belonged to the sect of Calvinists. Our home was
hideous, and we were poor. Any release from it was welcome.
John Drage, the man whom I married, had one good quality. He
was generous. He bought me pictures, and books--things which
I always craved. When my father's command came, it did not
seem a hardship. I married him. He was not so much a bad
man, perhaps, as a weak one. We lived together for four
years. I had one child, a little boy. Then I made a horrible
discovery. My husband, whom I knew to be a drunkard, was
hideously, debasingly false to me. The bald facts are these.
I myself saw him drunk and helped into his carriage by one
of those women whose trade it is to prey upon such
creatures. This was not an exceptional occurrence. It was a
habit.

"There, I have told you. It would have hurt me less to have
cut off my right hand. But there shall be no
misunderstanding, nor any concealment between us. I left
John Drage's house that night. I took little Freddy with me;
but when I refused to return, he stole the child away from
me. Then I drew a sharp line at that point