Everything conspires against me now; even Mateel’s religion torments me. I can think of nothing that cannot in some way be construed into misery. Mateel’s hope of heaven is a hope of torment for me. She knows my unbelief, and must be convinced that, if she is right, the years of her happiness in the future can only be measured by the years of my suffering, but she has no other comfort to offer than the hope that I shall be “saved.” How natural it is to disguise fear with hope! I would not regard it as a kindness in a man who saw me drowning to stand peacefully on the bank, and hope I would take hold of a straw, and save myself, but I should admire him if he jumped in, and pulled me out. Hope is often nothing more than an excuse for incapacity and for mistakes, as we hope, in case of an accident caused by carelessness, that nothing serious will result, or as we hope, when we do not do our duty, that everything will turn out fortunately anyway. If my love for Mateel had never been interrupted, and I had her faith, and she my doubts, I should go mad from thinking of her future. I would make my interest in her impending fate so great that she would become alarmed, and be rescued; or, failing in that, I would be lost with her. I would not own a faith which would not save one I loved, and whom I knew to be honest and pure-minded. I have no particular fears for myself, but, knowing Mateel’s belief as I do, I am hurt at her indifference. I am always thinking--really, I cannot help it, much as I try--that she offers up her prayers for Bragg, and that to be reunited with him I must be burned up, for I am certain that I could not exist with him comfortably anywhere. I take a kind of delight in finding out how unfortunate I am, and once I wrung a confession from her that she thought it extremely probable that I would be lost, but that all knowledge of it would be blotted out of her memory, and forget in her happiness that I had ever lived. If Mateel’s religion turns out to be true, I think it will be a part of my punishment to be permitted to look into heaven, and see her happy, without a care or thought of me. I don’t think it would be possible to save such a man, but it may become necessary to properly punish my wickedness to place Bragg by her side, in Paradise, that I may contemplate them walking lovingly together.