was as yet unduly developed. After his Texan campaign he sometimes
showed a rather lofty idea of his own achievements; but he does
not seem to have done so in these early days.

Some have ascribed the separation to his passion for drink; but
here again we must discriminate. Later in life he became very fond
of spirits and drank whisky with the Indians, but during his
earlier years he was most abstemious. It scarcely seems possible
that his wife left him because he was intemperate.

If one wishes to construct a reasonable hypothesis on a subject
where the facts are either wanting or conflicting, it is not
impossible to suggest a solution of this puzzle about Houston.
Although his abandoned wife never spoke of him and shut her lips
tightly when she was questioned about him, Houston, on his part,
was not so taciturn. He never consciously gave any direct clue to
his matrimonial mystery; but he never forgot this girl who was his
bride and whom he seems always to have loved. In what he said he
never ceased to let a vein of self-reproach run through his words.

I should choose this one paragraph as the most significant. It was
written immediately after they had parted:

Eliza stands acquitted by me. I have received her as a virtuous,
chaste wife, and as such I pray God I may ever regard her, and I
trust I ever shall. She was cold to me, and I thought she did not
love me.

And again he said to an old and valued friend at about the same
time: