Part 33 (2/2)

Are you in the reat Stony Mountains of which reat unicorn or the mammoth or the mastadon which Mr

Jefferson said you were likely to reat serpents of a foregone day? Suppose you have What do they weigh with ht they would be? Is the taste of all your triumphs so sweet as you have dreae, my friend--have you come to be just a man like the others? Tell ht you could descend to the lawless standard of the wilderness--but no, I cannot think of that! In any case, 'tis too late now You have not co not so much to i By the time this reaches you, it will be too late in our plans We could not afford to waitas that since you left us? If so, it is too late now If we have failed, why did we fail?

They told me--my father and his friends--and I told you plainly, that if your expedition went on, then our plan must fail But now I must presume that you have succeeded, or by this ti of either success or failure If you have failed, it is too late for us to succeed If you have succeeded, then certainly we have failed As you read this, youin despair

Meriwether Lewis, come back to me, even so! It will be too late for you to aid me You will have ruined all our hopes

But yours still will be the task--the duty--to look ive you? Why, yes, I could never do aught else than forgive No ive you Because, after all, my oish in all this----

Ah! let reatest wish in this, greater than any ambition I had forthose words--would I dare tell them to any other man in all the world? Nay, surely not But that I trust you, the very writing itself is proof And I write this to you, who never can be to me what man must be to woman if either is to be happy--the man to whom I can never be oman must be if she is to ed by circumstance, sundered by that, if you please, weak as those words see take mine to you, across all the wilderness, across all theand bitter months?

I say to you once more that in all this my demand upon you has not been for myself, nor wholly for ulf is fixed between us for all our lives

Neither of usDo not ask me why I wished that--you must never ask me I am Mrs Alston, even as I write

And as for you? Are you in rags as you read this? Are you cold and hungry? Are you alone, aloof, deserted, perhaps suffering, with none to comfort you? I cannot aid you Nay, I shall punish you once ht this on yourself--that you would have it thus, in spite of all my intervention for you

Moreover, you shall say to yourself always:

”She asked and I refused her!”

Nay, nay! I shall not be so cruel I shall not say that at all Let me mark that out! Because, if I write that, you will think I wish to hurt you And, ht not to lay upon you as any secret--_I could never wish to hurt you_

They say that ht of the face of a woman See, now you have that! I look up at you! What is your impulse? I am alone with you--I am in your hands--treat me, therefore, with honor, I pray you!

You must not raise my face to yours, must not bend yours to mine See now, measure reat confidence I hold in you as a gentleentlee--the woman who can never be his, who is another's Is it not true?

Happiness is not for us We are so far apart I aht, Meriwether Lewis! I, too, have your picture by inia

And it--good night, Mr Meriwether Lewis!

Place me apart--far from you in the room Let my face not look at you direct But in your heart--your hard heart of a etful of all else--please, please let there linger some small memory of her who dares to write these lines--and who hopes that you never may see them!

CHAPTER X

THE ABYSS

The little Indian dog sat on the table, silent,at its master, whose head was bowed upon his arms Now and then it had stooped as if it would have looked in his face, but dared not, if for very excess of love It turned an inquiring eye to the door, which, after a time, opened