Once or twice I have had to call in Dr.
Magruder, who owns the hospital.

"It has been terribly hard for me to write all this, but I had to do it,
in order that you might understand the situation completely. Hugh dear, I
simply can't leave him. This has been becoming clearer and clearer to me
all these weeks, but it breaks my heart to have to write it. I have
struggled against it, I have lain awake nights trying to find
justification for going to you, but it is stronger than I. I am afraid of
it--I suppose that's the truth. Even in those unforgettable days at the
farm I was afraid of it, although I did not know what it was to be. Call
it what you like, say that I am weak. I am willing to acknowledge that it
is weakness. I wish no credit for it, it gives me no glow, the thought of
it makes my heart sick. I'm not big enough I suppose that's the real
truth. I once might have been; but I'm not now,--the years of the life I
chose have made a coward of me. It's not a question of morals or duty
it's simply that I can't take the thing for which my soul craves. It's
too late. If I believed in prayer I'd pray that you might pity and
forgive me. I really can't expect you to understand what I can't myself
explain. Oh, I need pity--and I pity you, my dear. I can only hope that
you will not suffer as I shall, that you will find relief away to work
out your life. But I will not change my decision, I cannot change it.
Don't come on, don't attempt to see me now. I can't stand any more than I
am standing, I should lose my mind."

Here the letter was blotted, and some words scratched out. I was unable
to reconstruct them.

"Ralph and I," she proceeded irrelevantly, "have got Ham to agree to go
to Buzzard's Bay, and we have taken a house near Wareham. Write and tell
me that you forgive and pity me. I love you even more, if such a thing is
possible, than I have ever loved you. This is my only comfort and
compensation, that I have had and have been able to feel such a love, and
I know I shall always feel it.--Nancy." The first effect of this letter
was a paralyzing one. I was unable to realize or believe the thing that
had happened to me, and I sat stupidly holding the sheet in my hand until
I heard voices along the path, and then I fled instinctively, like an
animal, to hide my injury from any persons I might meet. I wandered down
the shore of the lake, striking at length into the woods, seeking some
inviolable shelter; nor was I consciou