I have come to a pass where I can say to myself with truth, that I
do not care how much or how little you love me. That depends upon
_you_, as well as myself. I believe the time will come, when you
will love me as you ought, and I say this in perfect calm
conviction, in all my weakness, and with all my maudlin habits
clinging to me. Strangely enough your doubt of me has made me rise
up in arms to champion my cause, or else I should lie down forever
in the dust, and deny my God.

I wonder whether it is my love for you that makes me believe? I
cling to you, as a mother might cling to her child; I cling to you
as the embodiment, the promise, of all I will ever find true in
life. I look to live in you, to fulfil all my possibilities in you,
and if you die or forsake me, all my hope is gone, and I am dead.
This is a letter in which I have no scorn or doubt, or ridicule of
myself, as formerly.

And then you ask me, "Can a girl brought up in gentleness and
sweetness, and innocence of life and of pain, can she say things,
feel things like these?" It is the gentleness and sweetness and
innocence that are galling to me. I can tolerate no more of them.
They have warped me, they have given me no chance. But I have had
some pain in my life, and since I have known you I have known more
about pain and what it brings, and leaves.--And now I am feeling
ill, and I cannot control that. Oh, God!

XIII

Dearest Corydon: