“‘But I have not been wholly blind to your deep misery. I have seen it, and, at times, feared that I might be the cause. I did not dare ask the cause. Feeling not myself that degradation and misery of which you speak, I did not know how much you suffered; but I should have known, had I not been blinded by passion, and by the false idea that man had a right to the indulgence of his passional nature whenever he wished it, and that, too, without regard to the feelings of his wife, or the welfare of the child that might ensue. “‘True, I, at times, heard your words of remonstrance and entreaty, but they did not touch my heart; my passion made me deaf or indifferent to your appeals to my manhood to spare you from a maternity which you could not joyfully welcome. I was lost in my own hell, and tormented. I was blind; but now and then, glimpses came to me, from your own keen anguish, of the real truth. But the blur of selfish, craving passion, would come over my sight, and I would go on my old way, cheating myself always, and sometimes you, into the feeling that it was all right; that man had a right to that indulgence, whatever might be the conditions of the wife, and whatever her feelings in regard to Maternity. At least, I persuaded myself and you _that I could not help it_, and that my health would suffer unless I frequently held that relation with you. “‘Now that blind dominion of passion is at an end. Your appeal to my manhood has reached its deepest depths. The gratification of animal passion shall no more guide me in my relations to you. That it ever has is my shame, as well as your degradation. I wish you could see my soul as it now is; you would see a revolution in it. The deep wail of your spirit has reached my heart, and I am ready to go up with you out of the perdition into which my uncontrolled sensualism has cast us.