She fell ill. I got the best medical attendance and nurses. The end was approaching, and then she sent for me, and confessed again that she had wronged me, and almost cursed that Hon. gentleman who, by his pious talk and seductive flatteries, had led her astray, and held her in his power, spellbound and powerless as the serpent holds the poor, weak bird, and destroyed our love and home. Why should she not curse him? “For cursed be the heart that had the heart to do it.” She did not blame me for what I had done. My kindness and consideration had made her love me more than ever. She had repented with bitter tears, until her heart was broken, and now, at the close of her life, ending so sadly, she wanted my forgiveness, which I gave most freely. She begged a parting farewell kiss, which I had no desire to refuse, and she departed, once the life of my life, but now no more. Did I not suffer, and for her? Did I not live down in the valley of despair, and under the shadow of death, all those months and for her sake? I would have given all I possessed, even life itself, to have restored her to me as she once was—my wife. I buried her body in a beautiful spot in the cemetery, in silence, as not a prayer or funeral note was uttered, for I had been so damnably wronged by my Christian father, and this Hon. Christian gentleman who had murdered my love, whom I had often seen, hail fellow, well met, with the chaplain, and had noticed in church piously reciting the prayers, that I hated everything associated with him, and wished to have neither priest nor prayers. My wish is, that if there be a devil, he may get this seducer and give him his just dues, as I would wish to see a murderer caught and hung. I believe in justice to sinners as well as to saints. Some might say, “Why not have charity?” and my reply would be, “Urge neither charity nor shame to me, Uncharitably with me have you dealt, And shamefully by you my hopes are butchered, My charity is outrage, life my shame And in that shame still lives my sorrow’s rage.” The last mark of respect I could show her was to erect a beautiful monument on her grave, inscribed with “Mary, the wife of Charles Japhet,” which the world may read, though it has never known the secret of our lives until now. Though she had ceased to be in my heart my wife, still she was and ever will be my wife in name.