pe. I went over the scene we had just
gone through, trying to draw from it what was in my favor and what was
against me. I was rewarded by feeling confident that she loved me, but
I could not estimate what was the effect upon her of my confession. At
last, nervous and unhappy, I wrote her a letter, which I dropped into
the mail-box before going to bed, in which I said:

I understand, understand even better than you, and so
I suffer even more than you. But why should either of us
suffer for what neither of us is to blame for? If there is
any blame, it belongs to me and I can only make the old,
yet strongest plea that can be offered, I love you; and I
know that my love, my great love, infinitely overbalances
that blame and blots it out. What is it that stands in the
way of our happiness? It is not what you feel or what I
feel; it is not what you are or what I am. It is what others
feel and are. But, oh! is that a fair price? In all the
endeavors and struggles of life, in all our strivings and
longings, there is only one thing worth seeking, only one
thing worth winning, and that is love. It is not always
found; but when it is, there is nothing in all the world for
which it can be profitably exchanged.

The second morning after, I received a note from her which stated
briefly that she was going up into New Hampshire to spend the summer
with relatives there. She made no reference to what had passed between
us; nor did she say exactly when she would leave the city. The note
contained no single word that gave me any clue to her feelings. I
could gather hope only from the fact that she had written at all.
On the same evening, with a degree of trepidation which rendered me
almost frightened, I went to her house.

I met her mother, who told me that she had left for the country that
very afternoon. Her mother treated me in her usual pleasant manner,
which fact greatly reassured me; and I left the house with a vague
sense of hope stirring in my breast, which sprang from the conviction
that she had not yet divulged my secret. But that hope did not remain
with me long. I waited one, two, three weeks, nervously examining my
mail every day, looking for some word from her. All of the letters
received by me seemed so insignificant, so worthless, because there
was none from her. The slight buoyancy of spirit which I had felt
gradually dissolved into gloomy heart-sickness. I became preoccupied;
I lost ap