“‘Your father had loaded my dressing case with splendid jewels, in the selection of which his taste was unusually good. I left them all behind, all but this ring, which he had given me when you were born and asked me to regard as his thank offering for you. I have kept it all these years. I have suffered and starved many times rather than profane it by pawning, though often my need has been so sore that I have had to put even my clothes in pledge for the money with which to buy a dinner of bread and red herrings. “‘I had money enough at first, for your father’s generosity had made my bank deposit large. But I had to spend the money in keeping myself hidden away with you, and I could not earn more by my music, as that would make me easily found. It was then that I translated my name. Mammy remained with me, caring for nothing in the world but you. “‘It was several years before your father found me out. I was shocked and distressed at the way in which sorrow had written its signature upon his face. I loved him then far better than I had ever done before. For the first time I fully understood how greatly good and noble he was. But I would not, I could not, go back with him to the home I had disgraced. I could have borne all the scorn and contempt with which his friends would have looked upon me. I could have faced all that defiantly and with an erect head, giving scorn for scorn and contempt for contempt, where I knew that my censors were such only because in their commonplaceness they could not understand a nature like mine or even believe in its impulses. But I could not bear to go back to Pocahontas and witness the pity with which everybody there would look upon him. “‘I resisted all his entreaties for my return, but for your sake I tore my heart out by consenting to give you up to him. You were rapidly growing in intelligence and I perfectly knew that such bringing up as I could give you would ruin your life in one way or another. Never mind the painful memory of all that. I consented at last to let your father take you back to Pocahontas and bring you up in a way suited to your birth and condition. Mammy went with you of course. Your father begged for the privilege of providing for my support in comfort while I should live, but I refused. I begged him to go into the courts and free himself from me. He could have got his divorce in Virginia upon the ground of my desertion. I shall never forget his answer. ‘When I married you, Dorothy’--for your name, my child, is the same as my own--‘When I married you, Dorothy, it was not during good behavior but forever. You are my wife, and you will be always the one woman I love, the one woman whose name I will protect at all hazards and all costs. No complaint of you has ever passed my lips. I have suffered no human being to say aught to your hurt in my presence or within my knowledge. Nor shall I to the end. You are my wife. I love you. That is all of it.’