* * * * * I took my resolution--I have fulfilled it. I have met him again, as a faithful wife should meet her husband: no word, no look, betrays, or shall betray, what I know. All our outward life goes on as before: his tenderness for me is constant--overflowing. But oh! the agony, worse than death, of knowing my idol fallen--that where I once worshiped, I can only pity, weep, and pray. * * * * * He told me yesterday he did not feel like the same man that he was before his marriage. He said I was his good angel: that through me he became calmer, happier every day. It was true: I read the change in his face. Others read it too. Even his aged mother told me, with tears, how much good I had done to Laurence. For this, thank God! My husband! my husband! At times I could almost think this horror was some delirious dream, cast it all to the winds, and worship him as of old. I do feel, as I ought, deep tenderness--compassion. No, no! let me not deceive myself: I love him; in defiance of all I love him, and shall do evermore. Sometimes his olden sufferings come over him, and then I, knowing the whole truth, feel my very soul moved within me. If he had only told me all: if I could now lay my heart open before him, with all its love and pardon; if he would let me comfort him, and speak of hope, of heaven's mercy--of atonement, even on earth. But I dare not--I dare not. Since, from this silence which he has seen fit to keep, I must not share the struggle, but must stay afar off--then, like the prophet who knelt on the rock, supplicating for Israel in the battle, let my hands fall not, nor my prayer cease, until heaven sendeth the victory. * * * * * Nearer and nearer comes the hour which will be to me one of a double life, or of death. Sometimes, remembering all I have lately suffered, there comes to me a heavy foreboding. What, if I, so young, to whom, one little year ago, life seemed an opening paradise--what, if I should die--die and leave _him_, and he never know how deeply I have loved--how much I have forgiven? Yes; he might know, and bitterly. Should Louisa tell. But I will prevent that. * * * * * In my husband's absence, I have sat up half the night writing; that, in case of my death, he may be made acquainted with the whole truth, and hear it from me alone. I have poured out all my sufferings--all my tenderness: I have implored him, for the love of heaven, for the love of me, that he would in every way atone for the past, and lead for the future a righteous life; that his sin may be forgiven, and that, after death, we may meet in joy evermore. * * * * *