“My fond, faithful Charlie! He deserved a better fate and a better wife. Of course, after that, there was no fear of discovery, even though I mourned with the bitterness of despair over my lost hopes. My mother’s death was excuse enough for my grief, though people said I laid it to heart more than they imagined I could. For a long time I felt as if life was little better than a mockery. Mine certainly thus far had been a miserable failure. My husband dead, my child lost to me forever—for, of course, I could never claim her now—what was there in the world for me to live for? “After a time I grew bitter and reckless. I told myself if I could not have the blessings that usually crown a woman’s life, I would make the most of the fortune that I still possessed; I would travel—I would see the world—I would not deny myself a single wish or whim. My sister and I started off again. We went to England first, where I found my husband’s grave, but did not dare even to mark it with any expression of my love. We went to Egypt and Palestine, joining a party of travelers thither, and after spending another year in roving we came back once more to America. “Three months after our return, Nellie, too, sickened and died, and I was left utterly alone in the world—alone with my ill-gotten wealth and splendor. What was my money to me then?—like the apples of Sodom; and yet I experienced a grim sort of satisfaction that the income of Uncle Jabez’s property was still mine, that I had outwitted the world and the lawyers or executors of Uncle Jabez’s will by my art and cunning. But only a little more than a year remained before I should be twenty-five, when, if my cousin and I were both unmarried, Robert Dale would have our fortune. I grew rebellious at the thought. I had nothing but my money to live for now, and my money I wanted to keep. I had sacrificed truth, principle, and all the noblest elements of my woman’s nature for it, and I was willing to make almost any sacrifice now to retain it.