and wrote to my uncle Starkweather, telling him
exactly what had happened, and inclosing him a copy of my husband's
letter. This done, I went out for a little while to breathe the fresh
air and to think. I was soon weary, and went back again to my room to
rest. My kind old Benjamin left me at perfect liberty to be alone as
long as I pleased. Toward the afternoon I began to feel a little more
like my old self again. I mean by this that I could think of Eustace
without bursting out crying, and could speak to Benjamin without
distressing and frightening the dear old man.

That night I had a little more sleep. The next morning I was strong
enough to confront the first and foremost duty that I now owed to
myself--the duty of answering my husband's letter.

I wrote to him in these words:

"I am still too weak and weary, Eustace, to write to you at any length.
But my mind is clear. I have formed my own opinion of you and your
letter; and I know what I mean to do now you have left me. Some women,
in my situation, might think that you had forfeited all right to their
confidence. I don't think that. So I write and tell you what is in my
mind in the plainest and fewest words that I can use.

"You say you love me--and you leave me. I don't understand loving a
woman and leaving her. For my part, in spite of the hard things you have
said and written to me, and in spite of the cruel manner in which you
have left me, I love you--and I won't give you up. No! As long as I live
I mean to live your wife.

"Does this surprise you? It surprises _me._ If another woman wrote
in this manner to a man who had behaved to her as you have behaved, I
should be quite at a loss to account for her conduct. I am quite at a
loss to account for my own conduct. I ought to hate you, and yet I can't
help loving you. I am ashamed of myself; but so it is.

"You need feel no fear of my attempting to find out where you are, and
of my trying to persuade you to return to me. I am not quite foolish
enough to do that. You are not in a fit state of mind to return to
me. You are all wrong, all over, from head to foot. When you get right
again, I am vain enough to think that you will return to me of your
own accord. And shall I be weak enough to forgive you? Yes! I shall
certainly be weak enough to forgive you.

"But how are you to get right again?

"I have puzzled my brains over this question by night and by day, and my
opinion is that you will never get righ