It is strange how they all fancy that the rest are mad, and they the
only sane ones. Some of them even go so far as to think that _I_ have
lost my reason. I heard one woman say, not long ago,--"Why, she has
been mad these twenty years! She never was married in her life; but she
believes all these things as if they were really so, and tells them
over to anybody who will listen to her."

Mad these twenty years! So young as I am, too! And I never married, and
all my wrongs a maniac's raving! I was angry at first, and would have
struck her; then I thought, "Poor thing! Why should I care? She does
not know what she is saying."

And I go about, seeing always before me that pallid, horror-stricken
face; and wishing sometimes--oh, how vainly!--that I had listened to
him that bright October day,--that I had been a happy wife, perchance a
happy mother. But no, no! I must not think thus. Once I look at it in
that way, my whole life becomes a terror, a remorse. I will not, must
not, have it so.

Then let me rejoice again, for I have had my revenge,--a great, a
glorious revenge!

* * * * *


LEFT BEHIND.

It was the autumn of the year;
The strawberry-leaves were red and sere;
October's airs were fresh and chill,