Orleans, with your kindest letter, I had one from my dearest,
gracious friend Mr. Kenyon, who, in his goodness, does more than
exculpate--even _approves_--he wrote a joint letter to both of us.
But oh, the anguish I have gone through! You are good, you are kind. I
thank you from the bottom of my heart for saying to me that you would
have gone to the church with me. _Yes, I know you would_. And for
that very reason I forbore involving you in such a responsibility and
drawing you into such a net. I took Wilson with me. I had courage to
keep the secret to my sisters for their sakes, though I will tell you
in strict confidence that it was known to them _potentially_, that
is, the attachment and engagement were known, the necessity remaining
that, for stringent reasons affecting their own tranquillity, they
should be able to say at last, 'We were not instructed in this and
this.' The dearest, fondest, most affectionate of sisters they are to
me, and if the sacrifice of a life, or of all prospect of happiness,
would have worked any lasting good to them, it should have been made
even in the hour I left them. I knew _that_ by the anguish I suffered
in it. But a sacrifice, without good to anyone--I shrank from it. And
also, it was the sacrifice of _two_. And _he_, as you say, had done
everything for me, had loved me for reasons which had helped to weary
me of myself, loved me heart to heart persistently--in spite of my own
will--drawn me back to life and hope again when I had done with both.
My life seemed to belong to him and to none other at last, and I had
no power to speak a word. Have faith in me, my dearest friend, till
you can know him. The intellect is so little in comparison to all the
rest, to the womanly tenderness, the inexhaustible goodness, the high
and noble aspiration of every hour. Temper, spirits, manners: there is
not a flaw anywhere. I shut my eyes sometimes and fancy it all a dream
of my guardian angel. Only, if it had been a dream, the pain of some
parts of it would have awakened me before now; it is not a dream. I
have borne all the emotion of fatigue miraculously well, though, of
course, a good deal exhausted at times. We had intended to hurry on
to the South at once, but at Paris we met Mrs. Jameson, who opened her
arms to us with the most literal affectionateness, _kissed us both_,
and took us by surprise by calling us 'wise people, wild poets or
not.' Moreover, she fixed us in an apartment above her own