“That night upon returning to my room I read, written in trembling hand upon an open page of my note-book, these words, which are burned into my memory: ‘Markham, my husband,—for God knows no act of mine has made me other than your wife,—I feel that the time will come when my innocence will in some way be vindicated. It may never be while I live, but I cannot believe a just and over-ruling Providence will allow such a foul wrong to be done and the perpetrator to go unpunished. And some day, in some way, justice will be done to me or my memory. Then you may, perhaps, realize the tithe of what I now suffer in the remorse which will follow you to the grave. Deal gently and tenderly with my babies who are to be without a mother, and remember, as you would have God deal justly with you, to keep your promise and allow the little Eva to cheer her mother’s desolate heart at the end of this terribly long probation. May Heaven forgive you and open your eyes to the fatal and terrible mistake you have made, is the prayer of your injured and heart-broken Agnes.’ “Well, we had not been long at their grandmother’s before the children were taken sick with that terrible ravaging disease, diphtheria, and in three short days Arthur and Eva, the youngest boy and the baby girl, were chill and cold in death. I would have sent for their mother, I think, had more time been given me; but they were taken down so suddenly and the disease made such rapid progress that ere I was aware of their danger death had already set its seal upon them, and I could only telegraph their mother the sad tidings that two of her loved ones were no more. “It was some time before I heard from her, and then came such a letter as I never read before, and have never dared to read a second time, so full was it of hopeless agony and pain. I could not sleep for nights after. The words kept ringing in my ears, together with the plaintive moans of my little ones, who cried for mamma with their last conscious moments. I would think, sometimes, that if I lived until the morning I would take the first train to my wife, and despite her treachery would forgive and take her once more to my heart and trust; but the morning light would dissolve alike my visions and my resolutions, and I had to read but one of Teasdale’s letters to harden my heart to all such sentiments. Do you wonder that I never doubted the genuineness of those letters? How could I doubt with the remembrance of their finding ever before me?