_"Ralph Towne, M. D.,
City."_
Her tender, passionate, truth-loving, bewildered heart had poured itself
out in these words:
* * * * *
"I am so afraid of leading you to think something that is not true;
something that I may have to contradict in the future. When I am with
you, I forget every thing but you; when I am alone, my heart rises up
and warns me that I may be making another mistake, that I only _think_ I
love you because I want to so much, and that I should only worry you
with my caprices and doubts if I should marry you. You have been very
patient with me, but you might lose your patience if I should try it too
far. I _will_ not marry you until I am _sure_; I must know of a
certainty that I love you with the love that hopes, endures, that can
suffer long and still is kind. You do not know me, I am hard and proud;
when I went down into the Valley of Humiliation because of believing
that you loved me when you did not, I was not gentle and sweet and
forgiving--I was hard and bitter; I hated you almost as much as I had
loved you. Now I must think it all through and live through all those
days, the days when I loved you and the days when I hated you, before I
can understand myself. I could marry you and we could live a life of
surface peace and satisfaction, and you might be satisfied in me and
with me; but if _I_ felt the need of loving you more than I did love
you, my life would be bondage. If the pride and hardness and
unforgivingness may be taken away and I _may_ love you and believe in
you as I did that day that you brought me the English violets, I shall
be as happy--no, a thousand times happier than I was then. But you must
not hope for that; it is not _natural_; it may be that of grace such
changes are wrought, but grace is long in working in proud hearts. You
are not bound to me by any word that you have spoken; find some one
gentle and loving who will love you for what you are and for what you
will be."