"There is not, indeed, much danger! Have you pen and ink here?"

She brought them to him immediately, with paper.

You have been writing to me, you say?--I will begin a letter myself."

"To me?" cried she.

He made no answer, but took up the pen, and wrote a few words, and
then, flinging it down, said, "Fool!--I could have done this without
coming!"

"May I look at it?" said she; and, finding he made no opposition,
advanced and read.

_I fear to alarm you by rash precipitation,--I fear to alarm you by
lingering suspense,--but all is not well--_

"Fear nothing!" cried she, turning to him with the kindest earnestness;
"tell me, whatever it may be!--Am I not your wife? bound by every tie
divine and human to share in all your sorrows, if, unhappily, I cannot
mitigate them!"

"Since you allow me," cried he, gratefully, "so sweet a claim, a claim
to which all others yield, and which if you repent not giving me, will
make all others nearly immaterial to me,--I will own to you that all,
indeed, is not well! I have been hasty,--you will blame me; I deserve,
indeed, to be blamed!--entrusted with your peace and happiness, to
suffer rage, resentment, violence, to make me forego what I owed to