"I do know. I know you are disappointed in the man you love--that you have found weakness where you fancied strength: but I know that, woman-like, you still love, if possible, more tenderly than before your idol was shattered, and that you are shrinking now from the prospect of a long and uncertain separation. I pity you, believe me, I pity you; but these are griefs that time has a cure for. Do not talk of despair till you have felt what it is to be unloved and unblest--to be without an interest on earth, with but a slender right to hope in heaven--to be thwarted in all you undertake, balked of all you desire--till you have seen another and an unworthier hand take down your crown of life, and wear it careless in your sight." "Perhaps I know all that as well as you," was on my lips, but I only hid my face and turned away. He did not understand the gesture, and said sadly, after a pause: "Why are you so wretched? I have assured you there is little danger, and what is there so insupportable in the separation of a year or two? Or is it something in the manner of parting; were you unprepared to find him gone? Did he leave no good bye?" "No," I said, glad to have some excuse for my tears; "I never dreamed of his going--it is too unkind! And I shall never forgive myself either; when I saw him last, there was some misunderstanding, and I have not explained it to him! He has gone away in despair and in anger! Oh, I shall never, never forgive myself!" "You may overrate the cause," said my companion, "perhaps he may have found it more prudent to fly now, and could not wait to see you. Look about the room, there may be a letter somewhere, or he may have left one with Kitty." "Kitty knows nothing of it, and I do not see any letter." "What is that little package--beyond you--there on the table?" I seized it, and, bending eagerly over the light, read my name upon it. My hand trembled so that I could hardly open it. Within the first paper there was a letter; my eyes glanced hurriedly over it, but from another wrapping something dropped, one sight of which served to make me grasp the table for support, and drop the letter on the floor. "What is it?" cried my companion, starting forward, and picking up my letter, leading me to a chair. "Read it to me--I can't--I don't understand," I faltered, putting back the letter in his hand. He looked at me hesitatingly a moment, then read it aloud: "I promised you freedom. Well! I have been a coward not to have given it to you sooner; but when you read this, there will be such a gulf between us, that you may well grant a little pity to the cowardice that only feared death as a separation from you--that only clung to life as sweetened by your love.