knowledge rolled over me like a wave that she loved me, and I left her, stung by the consciousness of having taken an unworthy advantage of a simple and trustful nature. I know that this is high tragedy, and will meet with your displeasure. I can hear you say, "Confound you, Harry! why don't you marry her?" Very easy to say; but look at the situation, which is not so simple as you probably think. Of course any girl of my own class would never build an edifice of eternal and sacred happiness on such a foundation as a few warm looks and eloquent words, or even a caress, might furnish. In plain words, neither she nor I would think marriage a necessary or even likely sequence to such a preamble. But it is different with Miss Linton. I am sure, I am confident--laugh if you like--that she has never given any man what she has given me, either in degree or kind. Her eccentric notions about women's nature and position would protect her from tampering with her own feelings or those of another; and then, too, there has been so much hard reality, so much serious business, in her life that the sweet follies of girlhood have not been hers. Shall I say that I cannot help feeling her innocence and inexperience make her more attractive? I am not sure, even, that they do not balance her self-reliance and independence, which certainly repel me. All this I did not dream of at first. I am not a scoundrel or a coxcomb. It came to me the other afternoon all at once, when she threw her arms about my neck. I have been selfish, and perhaps stupid. "Why not marry her?" you say. I have asked myself that question, and this is my answer: No passion in the world could make me insensible to the humiliation of her career, and I should be obliged not only to accept it in the past, but to recognize it in the future. My wife must be my social equal and the natural associate of high-bred women. I must be able to take any man by the throat who looks at or speaks of her as does not please me. This woman's character, intellect, manners and appearance are public property for all purposes of criticism and comment. She is unsexed. My wife must be dependent on me, clinging to me. This woman has always stood, and will always stand alone; and yet I have thought that she was capable of such deep, strong, concentrated feeling that the man who owned her heart might do with her as he liked. This, I admit, has tempted me to think of marriage, for, after all, George, it would be a luxury to be very much loved. This woman would love a man in another fashion from that which prevails in society.