Shall the right I have asserted to live apart from my husband be
followed by cutting off every desire, by marring or concealing every
beauty, by devoting the remainder of a life, already cursed by an
involuntary indiscretion of youth, to asceticism, and so continue in
another form the struggle against nature to the end?—or accept the
creed of the man I love, and seek also my highest happiness in the
gratification of that love, which every instinct of my being approves?
And my answer to this final question is before you and all the world.
As I said at first, dear, I have no misgivings about the sincerity of
your affection for me, under any changes of life; and I feel just as
sure that you will never doubt the constant, undying friendship of