agony. Their eyes shall never meet; I shall stay and watch them, if
I die for it.

Only thirteen days more and he is mine, and I can bear him from her.
Yesterday I thought, Shall I give him to her? But I am not generous.
It may be wicked, it may be cruel, but I, too, am living. Why should
I break my heart that theirs may be whole? No; he chose me for his
wife, he will not take his word from me. I know he loves her better,
but he will forget that, I shall make him so happy, I shall spoil
him so! Oh, yes, he will forget. For a year, perhaps, he will be
unhappy; then all will be well.

It might be different if I did not know how happy I can make him.


_July 3d._--Let me write it down, all my infamy. I am possessed by a
new fear,--that Gabriel might prove honest. It is not true that
trouble chasteneth; there is no health left in me. If I clear all
the cobwebs away, I still can see the right. I can see this: that he
loves her better than me, and I remember our covenant.

I know that it is my duty to go to him and lay his freedom in his
hands; or, barring this, to await the truth from his own lips. Yet
now, when I am alone with him, I am possessed by this terrible new
fear, that he might be true to his own self and me. For to marry one
woman and love another is a shameful act indeed.

Let me look upon my love and ask myself whereof it is made. If I
seek to have this man, knowing his heart to be another's, if I
desire for him rather the silence of cowardice than the nobler