Recall the evening on which we met for the first time, and certain words which passed between us. You were at my father's house, advising him upon his business affairs, which had become complicated. You said that my voice reminded you of a friend--a lady friend, very dear to you--and that she was dead. The words did not make much impression upon me at the time; but I had occasion afterwards to remember them. I liked you that evening. Your grave face, your sensible ways, were agreeable to me, frivolous girl as you supposed me to be. We kept but little society; the only regular visitor at my father's house was my cousin Ralph. I loved him; but not in the way you suspected. We had been intimate from early childhood, and I had a sincere affection for him. When I became better acquainted with you, I saw faults in him which I had not hitherto discerned; there was a want of stability in his character; he was indolent and deficient in manliness. Even if you had not entered into my life, and marred it, I think I should never have had any but a cousinly love for him. So far as I was concerned, there were no grounds for jealousy on your part, and no grounds for your base suspicions of me. I do not speak for him; I speak for myself. And when you wrote to me on the day you deserted me, and accused me of loving him as a woman should love the man she wishes to marry, you lied. But you had another purpose to serve, and it suited you to write the lie. Of our married life I need say but few words. I was very happy for a time. You had behaved nobly and generously to my father; you were most kind and indulgent to me. If, as I afterwards learnt, we were living beyond our means, I had no suspicion of it. You never gave me the slightest hint to that effect, and you encouraged what I now know were extravagances in me. But--believe it or not as you will--I could have been contented and happy without them. You told me you were rich, and you could not fail to know that I had no idea of the value of money. Why could you not have confided in me? Was it honest to keep me, of your own free will, in such absolute ignorance, and then to blame me for not having known? I think, if you had trusted me, that you might have found some good in me--judged even by the light of your own hard judgment; but it is in your nature to accuse and judge in the same breath, and to do both unmercifully.