Nobody will ever know what it cost me to come! All of them were so
terribly opposed to it, but it seems to me that I have spent my entire
life going against the wishes of my family. Yet I would lay down my
life for any one of them. How they have stood by me and loved me
through all my blind blunders. I'd back my mistakes against anybody
else's in the world!

Then Mate there was Jack. You know how it has always been with
Jack. When I was a little girl, on up to the time I was married, after
that he never even looked it, but just stood by me and helped me like
a brick. If it hadn't been for you and for him I should have put an
end to myself long ago. But now that I am free, Jack has begun right
where he left off seven years ago. It is all worse than useless; I am
everlastingly through with love and sentiment. Of course we all know
that Jack is the salt of the earth, and it nearly kills me to give him
pain, but he will get over it, they always do, and I would rather for
him to convalesce without me than with me. I made him promise not to
write me a line, and he just looked at me in that quiet, quizzical way
and said: "All right, but you just remember that I'm waiting, until
you are ready to begin life over again with me."

Why it would be a death blow to all his hopes if he married me! My
widow's mite consists of a wrecked life, a few debts, and a worldly
notion that a brilliant young doctor like himself has no right to
throw away all his chances in order to establish a small hospital for
incurable children. Whenever I think of his giving up that
long-cherished dream of studying in Germany, and buying ground for the
hospital instead, I just gnash my teeth.

Oh! I know that you think it is grand and noble and that I am horrid