"So, my dearest, I have given you a true history of my _coquetting_ (?) life, with the exception of those tragedies you are acquainted with already. Frank Blake died, it is true, but never for a moment have I reproached myself with _his_ death. He was 'found drowned,' so the verdict of the coroner's jury ran; but have none others been ever 'found drowned,' than men who were in love? I am not jesting, or speaking lightly now. Heaven knows the subject is far too fearful to jest about! Could they who have seemed to delight in calling me little better than a murderess, but know what bitter, bitter hours I have passed writhing under their 'scorpion tongues,' they would, I think, be satisfied. I tell you again, my friend, Frank never treated me more kindly, or considerately, or _justly_ than he did that day when I told him I _could not_ love him as he deserved to be loved, though I must ever bear toward him the utmost respect and the kindliest feelings. And when Tom Harding made that incident a theme for newspaper gossip, I wonder Heaven had not blasted the right hand that dared to write such things! "You know how afterward I went to Frank's home--to his widowed mother. She, too, turned in horror from me when I told her who I was, and why I had come so far from my home in search of her. Go to her _now_, my friend, and she will tell you that she attaches to me _no_ blame. Even the agonized, heart-broken mother believed me, when I told her all that had transpired between her son and me. She _knows_, as _you_ know, and as _I_ know, that I never won the affections of her son intentionally, for the purpose of adding one more name to my list of conquests. "And of that other, whose name I will not write--he who died in the convict's cell--my friend, _had I_ aught to do with that man's crimes? The brutish madness with which he heard my refusal of his suit--his dreadful downward course afterward; oh, can unreturned _love_ be the instigator of such crimes? Had he not been a reckless youth ever; disliked of all the village boys, whose friendship, even his wealth and good family could not buy for him? If I would not wed a villain such as he, where rests the blame? Oh, surely _not with me_! _I_ did not make that festering, sinful heart of his, nor did I lure him on to hope that I would _ever_ wed him. If love is _heaven_, what were life with him! "I cannot write more--_non sum qualis eram_! yet the sun shines brightly on me still as in my childhood, and the future is _full_ of hope. If I have cleared myself of the imputation of the folly and heartlessness some have laid to my charge, it is well; _I_ cannot think that my proceedings have been _very_ dreadful, or sinful; they did not frighten honest-hearted, noble Ned Graham.