_Journal_.

_Dec_. 11. I am resolved to write it all down as it happened. I wrote
him a note this afternoon, and this evening he came--handsome, pale
and quiet. He walked up to me, took my hand in his, pressed it and let
it go. He did not wait for me to speak, fortunately, for I could
not have spoken: I could not have commanded my voice. He said--oh
so quietly and steadily!--"I should have come to see you to-night, I
think, if you had not asked me: I had so much to say."

"I thought you would never come," I answered.

He rose and walked hurriedly up and down the room, then paused in
front of me and said--his words seem burned into my brain--"You are
a woman who deserves frankness, and I will be utterly and absolutely
frank with you. I have done very wrong in behaving as I have done.
I had no right, no justification, for it, and I beg you to forgive
me--humbly I beg it on my knees;" and he knelt before me.

I was bewildered and pained beyond measure. I thought I knew not what,
but a tissue of wild absurdities rushed through my brain to account
for his words--anything rather than think he did not love me.

"With many women this confession would be unnecessary," he went on.
"You are genuine and simple, and attach a real meaning to every word
and act, because you do not yourself speak or act without meaning. How
can I, then, part from you without asking your forgiveness for what I
have said and done?"

"Part from me!" I exclaimed, holding out my hands to him: he had risen