"When the lawsuit went against me and I was wrongfully thrown into jail for
debt, their faithful interest only deepened. Very poor themselves, they
would yet have make any sacrifice in my behalf. During the months of my
imprisonment they were often with me, bringing every comfort and brightening
the dulness of many an hour.
"Upon my release I returned gladly to their joyous household, welcomed I
could not say with what joyous affection. Soon afterwards I found a position
in the office of a law firm and got my start in life.
"And now I cross the path of some things that cannot be written. But you who
know what my life and character had been will nobly understand: remember
your last words to me.
"One day I offered my hand to the daughter. I told her the whole truth: that
there was some one else--not free; that no one could take the place of this
other was filling at the moment, and would always fill. Nevertheless, if she
would accept me on these conditions, everything that it was in my power to
promise she could have.
"She said that in time she would win the rest.
"A few weeks later that letter came from you, bringing the intelligence that
changed everything. (Do you remember my reply? I seem only this moment to
have dropped the pen.) As soon as I could control myself, I told her that
now you were free, that it was but justice and kindness alike to her and to
me that I should give here the chance to reconsider the engagement. A week
passed, I went again. I warned her how different the situation had become. I
could promise less than before--I could not say how little. A month later I
went again.
"Ah, well--that is all!
"The summer after my marriage I travelled to Virginia regarding a landsuit.
One day I rode far out of my course into the path of the country where you
lived. I remained some days strolling over the silent woods and fields,
noting the bushes on the lawn, such as you had carried over into Kentucky,
hunting out the quiet nooks where you were used to read in your girlhood.
Those long, sweet, sacred summer days alone with you there before you were
married! O Jessica! Jessica! Jessica! Jessica! And to this day the sight of
peach blossoms in the spring--the rustle of autumn leaves under my feet! Can
you recall the lines of Malory? 'Men and women could love together seven
years, and then was love truth and faithfulness.' How many more than seven
have I loved you!--you who never gave me anything but friendship, but who
would in time, I hope, have given me everything if I had come back. Ah, I
did come back! Many a time even now as soon as I have hurried through the
joyous gateways of sleep, I come back over the mountains to you as naturally
as though there had been no years to separate and to age. Let me tell you
all this! My very life would be incomplete without it! I owed something to
you long before I owed anything to another: a duty can never set aside a
duty. And as to what I have owed you since, it becomes more and more the
noblest earthly that I shall ever leave unpaid. I did not know you perfectly
when we parted: I was too young, too ignorant of the world, too ignorant of
many women. A man must have touched their coarseness in order to appreciate
their refinement; have been wounded by untruthfulness to understand their
delicate honour; he must have been driven to turn his eyes mercifully away
from their stain before he can ever look with all the reverence and
gratitude of his heart and soul upon their brows of chastity.