ble
it was for me to take her North until she had some education and
knowledge of the world. I would leave her, I said, until I could decide
upon a school to which I would send her, and, as it would be absurd for
a married woman to be attending school, she was to retain her maiden
name of Harris, and tell no one of our marriage until I gave her
permission to do so. I think she would have jumped into the river at my
bidding, and she promised all that I required.

"'I shall never tell I am your wife until you say I may,' she said to me
when I left her, but there was a look in her eyes like that I once saw
in a pet dog I had shot, and which in dying licked my hands.

"Through Tom Hardy, who left Atlanta for Palatka, I sent her money
regularly and wrote occasionally, while she replied through the same
medium. Loving, pitiful letters they were, and would have moved the
heart of any man who was not a brute and steeped to the dregs in pride
and cowardice. I burned them as soon as I read them, for fear they might
be found. I told her to do the same with mine, and have no doubt she
did. I did mean fair about the school, and was making inquiries, slowly,
it is true, as my heart was not in it, and I had nearly decided upon
Lexington, Kentucky, when the birth of a little girl changed everything,
but did not reconcile me to the situation. I never cared for
children,--disliked them rather than otherwise,--and the fact that I was
a father did not move me a whit.

"There was a letter imploring me to come and see our baby, and I
promised to go, with a vague idea that I might some time keep my word.
But I didn't. I had no love for Eudora, none for the child; and still a
thought of it haunted me continually, and was the cause of my giving the
grounds and the school-house to the town. I wanted to expiate my sin,
and at the same time increase my popularity, for at that time I was
trying to make up my mind to acknowledge my marriage and bring Eudora
home. The poor girl never knew it, for on the day of the lawn party she
was buried. Tom Hardy wrote me she was dead, and that he was about
starting for Europe, and had given Jake, a faithful servant of the
family, my address. God knows my remorse when I heard it, and still I
put off going for the child until Jake wrote me that the grandmother,
too, had died, and added that it was not fitting for the little girl to
be brought up with Crackers and negroes. He did not know that I had
heard of Eud