"Rowland,
"The hour has arrived! The bells are ringing for the ceremony, yet I
am sitting here in my chamber--alone--alone in my anguish! I hear
hurried movements below, and the sounds of joyful voices--the voices
of those who come to celebrate my wedding-day; and yet I move not!
"I know that my sorrows will soon be at an end! Before another hour
has passed away, my soul will be wafted to another world! Yes,
Rowland! start not--but when those eyes, which have long haunted me in
my dreams shall be gazing on these lines, the poor, lone girl who
loved you, and sought your love in return, will have ceased to exist.
Her soul will be at rest from the agonies of this cruel world!
"Rowland! something tells me that I must not marry, that I must not
enter yonder sacred edifice, and pledge myself to one when I love
another. My conscience rebels against it. I will never do it! I
will die!
"You told me you had found the long-lost one you love. May _she_ know
all the happiness that is denied to me! May every blessing from
Heaven fall upon her head; and make her life one blissful dream--such
as I once hoped might be mine!
"I know that when you read this, the first impulse of your manly heart
will be to try to save me. But it will be too late! _Before you
could reach me, I shall have closed my eyes in the sleep of death_!
My last prayer shall be, that you may receive every earthly blessing;
and that you may long live in happiness to love her you have chosen as
your wife!
"Perhaps in your reveries, in solitude, or when your heart is sad--God
grant that may never be! you may bestow a thought on her whose heart
you won in a foreign land; and who, in her dying hour, breathed only
prayers for your welfare. In such a time, and when such thoughts may
wander through your mind, I would, that you may think my only sin in
life was in loving you too truly!
"Farewell, Rowland! Farewell for ever!
"Jessie."