I turned and lived. I resolved to give a life--my own--for the life which I had taken; to devote it wholly to the saving of other lives;--and at its close, when I had built up a good name, and shown openly that after _any_ crime a man might recover himself, repent and atone, I meant to pay the full price of the sin of my youth, and openly to acknowledge it before the world.--How far I was right or wrong in this decision, I cannot tell--perhaps no human judgment ever can tell: I simply state what I then resolved, and have never swerved from--till I saw you. Of necessity, with this ultimate confession ever before me, all the pleasures of life, and all its closest ties, friendship, love, marriage--were not to be thought of. I set them aside as impossible. To me, life could never be enjoyment, but simply atonement. My subsequent history you are acquainted with --how, after the needful term of medical study-in Britain, (I chose Dublin as being the place where I was utterly a stranger, and remained there till my four years ended), I went as an army surgeon half over the world. The first time I ever set foot in England again, was not many weeks before I saw, in the ballroom of the Cedars, that little sweet face of yours. The same face in which, two days ago, I read the look of love which stirs a man's heart to the very core. In a moment it obliterated the resolutions--conflicts--sufferings of twenty years, and restored me to a man's right and privilege of loving, wooing, marrying.--Shall we ever be married? By the time you read this, if ever you do read it, that question will have been answered. It can do you no harm if for one little minute I think of you as my wife; no longer friend, child, mistress, but _my wife_. Think of all that would have been implied by that name. Think of coming home, and of all that home would have been--however humble--to me who never had a home in my whole life. Think of all I would have tried to make it to you. Think of sitting by my fireside, knowing that you were the only one required to make it happy and bright; that, good and pleasant, and dear as many others might be--the only absolute necessity to each of us was one another. Then, the years that would have followed, in which we never had to say good-bye, in which our two hearts would daily lie open, clear and plain, never to have a doubt or a secret any more. Then--if we should not always be only two!--I think of you as my wife--the mother of my children-- * * * * * I was unable to conclude this last night. Now I only add a line before going into the town to gain information about--about this person: by whom his body was found, and where buried; with that intent I have already been searching the cathedral burying-ground; but there is no sign of graves there, all is smooth green turf, with the dew upon it glittering like a sheet of diamonds in the bright spring morning.