“‘If you condemn me to live without you--I feel it, I know it--you condemn me to despair which I have not fortitude enough to endure. Look at the passages which I have marked for you in the New Testament. Again and again, I say it; your true repentance has made you worthy of the pardon of God. Are you not worthy of the love, admiration, and respect of man? Think! oh, Sara, think of what our lives might be, and let them be united for time and for eternity. “‘I can write no more. A deadly faintness oppresses me. My mind is in a state unknown to me in past years. I am in such confusion that I sometimes think I hate you. And then I recover from my delusion, and know that man never loved woman as I love you. “‘You will have time to write to me by this evening’s post. I shall stop at Zeeland to-morrow, on my way back, and ask for a letter at the post office. I forbid explanations and excuses. I forbid heartless allusions to your duty. Let me have an answer which does not keep me for a moment in suspense. “‘For the last time, I ask you: Do you consent to be my wife? Say, Yes--or say, No.’ “I gave her back the letter--with the one comment on it, which the circumstances permitted me to make: “‘You said No?’ “She bent her head in silence. “I went on--not willingly, for I would have spared her if it had been possible. I said, ‘He died, despairing, by his own hand--and you knew it?’ “She looked up. ‘No! To say that I knew it is too much. To say that I feared it is the truth.’ “‘Did you love him?’ “She eyed me in stern surprise. ‘Have _I_ any right to love? Could I disgrace an honorable man by allowing him to marry me? You look as if you held me responsible for his death.’ “‘Innocently responsible,’ I said. “She still followed her own train of thought. ‘Do you suppose I could for a moment anticipate that he would destroy himself, when I wrote my reply? He was a truly religious man. If he had been in his right mind, he would have shrunk from the idea of suicide as from the idea of a crime.’ “On reflection, I was inclined to agree with her. In his terrible position, it was at least possible that the sight of the razor (placed ready, with the other appliances of the toilet, for his fellow-traveler’s use) might have fatally tempted a man whose last hope was crushed, whose mind was tortured by despair. I should have been merciless indeed, if I had held Miss Jethro accountable thus far. But I found it hard to sympathize with the course which she had pursued, in permitting Mr. Brown’s death to be attributed to murder without a word of protest. ‘Why were you silent?’ I said. “She smiled bitterly.