But I had, instead, to put on an indifferent face, exchange commonplaces with her, take her home; and, it being Sabbath by this time, had to join in the praying and the Scripture-reading, and all that. Of course, I was eager, wild, to get away, by myself. But I had to sit it out with the family--my wife, her mother, my uncle--till ten o'clock that night. I was pretty nearly beside myself. But at last I escaped, and got into my studio. There is no use my writing about that night, the night I passed alone up here in my studio--alone with you; for, so intense was my thought of you, you were all but palpable at my side. I had given you back, as I supposed, all your letters--every keepsake I had to connect me with the past. But this night, as the reward of much ransacking, I found in the drawer of my desk the very first note you had ever written me, the one in which you said you would go with me to the exhibition. Do you remember? How we walked up and down the galleries? And how you leaned upon my arm? And the little red bonnet that you wore? And how, afterward, we went to Delmonico's? That little note, ever since, has been the most precious of all my possessions. Your own hand traced these letters! Your own breath fell upon this paper! What effect it had upon me that night, I shall not attempt to tell you. Think of this: it still kept a faint trace of its fragrance--of the sweet smell it had had, when you first sent it to me. That _that_ should have remained, that immaterial, evanescent perfume! That _that_ should have outlasted the rest! No; there is no use of my writing a line about that night. I should only be incoherent, if I tried. All I will say is this: if you had cared about revenge, and had witnessed my suffering that night, you would have been satisfied.”