"After the divorce, which I know now was a most unjust and mean affair, the people in Indianapolis treated us with so much coldness and neglect that at last we went to South America,—father, mother and I,—went to live with Tom. He wanted me for his wife before you did, but I could not marry Tom. He is very rich now, and we lived with him, and then we all came to Europe and have traveled everywhere, and I have had teachers in everything, and people say I am a fine scholar, and praise me much; and, Guy, I have tried to improve just to please _you_; believe me, Guy, just to please _you_. Tom was as a brother,—a dear, good big bear of a brother, whom I loved as such, but nothing more. Even were you dead, I could not marry Tom after knowing you; and I told him so when in Berlin he asked me for the sixth time to be his wife. I had to tell him something hard to make him understand, and when I saw how what I said hurt him cruelly and made him cry because he was such a great big, awkward, dear old fellow, I put my arms around his neck and cried with him, and tried to explain, and that made him ten times worse. Oh, if people only would not love me so much it would save me a great deal of sorrow. "You see, I tell you this because I want you to know exactly what I have been doing these five years, and that I have never thought of marrying Tom or anybody. I did not think I could. I felt that if I belonged to anybody it was you, and I cannot have Tom, and father was very angry and taunted me with living on Tom’s money, which I did not know before, and then he accidently let out about the marriage settlement, and that hurt me worse than the other. "Oh, Guy, how can I give it up? Surely there must be a way now I am of age. I was so humiliated about it, and after all that passed between father and Tom and me, I could not stay in Berlin, and never be sure whose money was paying for my bread, and when I heard that Madame Lafarcade, a French lady, who had spent the winter in Berlin, was wanting an English governess for her children, I went to her, and as the result, am here at her beautiful country-seat, just out of the city, earning my own living and feeling so proud to do it; only, Guy, there is an ache in my heart, a heavy, throbbing pain which will not leave me day or night, and this is how it came there.