_Ignota_ of the necessity of his communicating with her, appeared
simultaneously in the Tribune, Herald, World, and Times. I renewed the
advertisement as the time expired without an answer, and I think it was
about the end of the third week before one came, through the post, as
before.

Ah, yes! I had forgotten. See! my advertisement is pasted on the note,
as a heading or motto for the manuscript lines. I don't know why the
printed slip should give me a particular feeling of humiliation as I
look at it, but such is the fact. What she wrote is all I need read to
you:

"I could not, at first, be certain that this was
meant for me. If I were to explain to you why I
have not written for so long a time, I might give
you one of the few clews which I insist on keeping
in my own hands. In your public capacity,
you have been (so far as a woman may judge) upright,
independent, wholly manly: in your relations
with other men I learn nothing of you that is not
honorable: toward women you are kind, chivalrous,
no doubt, overflowing with the _usual_ social
refinements, but--Here, again, I run hard upon
the absolute necessity of silence. The way to me,
if you care to traverse it, is so simple, so very simple!
Yet, after what I have written, I cannot even
wave my hand in the direction of it, without certain
self-contempt. When I feel free to tell you,
we shall draw apart and remain unknown forever.

"You desire to write? I do not prohibit it. I
have heretofore made no arrangement for hearing
from you, in turn, because I could not discover
that any advantage would accrue from it. But it
seems only fair, I confess, and you dare not think
me capricious. So, three days hence, at six
o'clock in the evening, a trusty messenger of mine
will call at your door. If you have anything to
give her for me, the act of giving it must be the
sign of a compact on your part, that you will allow
her to leave immediately, unquestioned and
unfollowed."

You look puzzled, I see: you don't catch the real drift of her words?
Well--that's a melancholy encouragement. Neither did I, at the time: it
was plain that I had disappointed her in some way, and my intercourse
with, or manner toward, women, had something to do with it. In vain I
ran over as much of my later social life as I could recall. There had
been no special attention, nothing to mislead a susceptible hea