“‘You have descended into hell, for my gratification. You have consented to terrible anguish of body and soul, for no higher object than my momentary pleasure. You have sacrificed your body and soul, your self-respect, your unborn children, on the altar of my ungovernable passion. From this hour, I will seek to repair the wrong I have done you. I have forced on you, in contempt of your entreaties, a maternity which could not be otherwise than most hateful to you. I have compelled you to pass through sufferings of body and anguish of mind which you were not ready to meet, and which were all the more severe, because they were imposed by one whom you loved, and who should have known better. I have imparted to you the elements of a new life, when your very soul spurned and loathed them. I have filled your heart with deadly hatred towards the young life, my own child, that was being developed beneath it. I have compelled you to a deed of all others the most loathsome and hateful to a pure, refined and noble woman,—to the _murder_ (it should have no other name) of your children, to the murder of _my_ children, ere they were born, to save them from the more fearful and horrible doom of an unwelcome and hated existence. “‘Talk not to me of _your_ guilt, of your unworthiness to stand by my side, and to tread with me the path of life as a true, noble and loving wife. If you are guilty, what am I? If you feel degraded by the loss of self-respect, what ought I to feel? The fault is all my own. I should have known better, and had a higher appreciation of the passional relation. Had I consulted your wishes as to maternity, had I counselled with you as to when you could, with safety and exultation, take charge of the germ of my child, and naturally develop it into life, had I never imposed on you a repulsive and abhorred maternity, would the stain of abortion now darken your soul? Yes, I see it all: the deep damnation of the deed is my own, and would to God that the penalty might descend on me; that I could save you, my long-suffering, too lenient and forgiving wife, the pain and anguish! “‘God help me! I am very sick at heart. The bitterness of death enters my soul, as I reflect on the unseen and unexpressed pain of body and desperation and anguish of soul to which my ungoverned passion has brought you. Can you forgive me? Can you again restore me to your loving confidence? Can you ever again respect my manhood, which has brought upon you all this woe? I will, henceforth, comply with the teachings of the book you sent me, and hold my entire nature in abeyance to your wishes and happiness, and in all my passional relations with you, my object shall be your health and happiness, rather than my own gratification. I will be to you an ERNEST, God helping me.