as expressed in these terms:

"News, by this morning's post, which has quite overwhelmed me. Helena's
husband died suddenly two days since of heart-disease. She is free--my
beloved Helena is free! And I?

"I am fettered to a woman with whom I have not a single feeling in
common. Helena is lost to me, by my own act. Ah! I can understand now,
as I never understood before, how irresistible temptation can be, and
how easily sometimes crime may follow it. I had better shut up these
leaves for the night. It maddens me to no purpose to think of my
position or to write of it."

The next passage, dated a few days later, dwelt on the same subject.

"Of all the follies that a man can commit, the greatest is acting on
impulse. I acted on impulse when I married the unfortunate creature who
is now my wife.

"Helena was then lost to me, as I too hastily supposed. She had married
the man to whom she rashly engaged herself before she met with me. He
was younger than I, and, to all appearance, heartier and stronger
than I. So far as I could see, my fate was sealed for life. Helena had
written her farewell letter, taking leave of me in this world for good.
My prospects were closed; my hopes had ended. I had not an aspiration
left; I had no necessity to stimulate me to take refuge in work. A
chivalrous action, an exertion of noble self-denial, seemed to be all
that was left to me, all that I was fit for.

"The circumstances of the moment adapted themselves, with a fatal
facility, to this idea. The ill-fated woman who had become attached to
me (Heaven knows--without so much as the shadow of encouragement on my
part!) had, just at that time, rashly placed her reputation at the mercy
of the world. It rested with me to silence the scandalous tongues that
reviled her. With Helena lost to me, happiness was not to be expected.
All women were equally indifferent to me. A generous action would be
the salvation of this woman. Why not perform it? I married her on that
impulse--married her just as I might have jumped into the water and
saved her if she had been drowning; just as I might have knocked a man
down if I had seen him ill-treating her in the street!

"And now the woman for whom I have made this sacrifice stands between me
and my Helena--my Helena, free to pour out all the treasures of her love
on the man who adores the earth that she touches with her foot!

"Fool! madman! Why don't I dash out my brains against the wall that I
see op