did not look well. Anxiously she asked me what was the matter. I said
that something had been upon my mind for a long time, which I thought
it my duty to tell her. I then went on to say that I felt she ought to
know what had happened. When we were first engaged we both professed
the same faith. From that faith I had gradually departed, and it
seemed to me that it would be wicked if she were not made acquainted
before she took a step which was irrevocable. This was true, but it
was not quite all the truth, and with a woman's keenness she saw at
once everything that was in me. She broke out instantly with a sob -

"Oh, Rough!"--a nickname she had given me--"I know what it all means--
you want to get rid of me."

God help me, if I ever endure greater anguish than I did then. I could
not speak, much less could I weep, and I sat and watched her for some
minutes in silence. My first impulse was to retract, to put my arms
round her neck, and swear that whatever I might be, Deist or Atheist,
nothing should separate me from her. Old associations, the thought of
the cruel injustice put upon her, the display of an emotion which I had
never seen in her before, almost overmastered me, and why I did not
yield I do not know. Again and again have I failed to make out what it
is which, in moments of extreme peril, has restrained me from making
some deadly mistake, when I have not been aware of the conscious
exercise of any authority of my own. At last I said -

"Ellen, what else was I to do? I cannot help my conversion to another
creed. Supposing you had found out that you had married a Unitarian
and I had never told you!"

"Oh, Rough! you are not a Unitarian, you don't love me," and she sobbed