Try to obtain permission to see me. It seems to me that they cannot
refuse it now.
* * * * *
_Monday evening, 24 December, 1894._
My Darling:
It is still to you that I write, for you are the only cord that binds me
to life. I know well that all my family, all your family, love me and
esteem me; but, after all, if I were to disappear, their grief, however
great, would fade with the years.
It is for you alone, my poor darling, that I gather strength to
struggle. It is the thought of you that stays my arm. How I feel in this
hour my love for you! Never has it been so great--so all absorbing. And
then a feeble hope sustains me yet a little; it is that we shall be able
some day to have my good name restored to me. But, above all, believe
me, if I should have strength to struggle to the end of this calvary, it
will be for your sake alone, my poor darling; it will be to avoid adding
a new chagrin to all those you have already borne. Do all that is
humanly possible to get to see me.