The second letter you are now reading.
If it fall into your hands, Jessie will have read it first, and will know how basely you behaved to me. She will know that your conduct towards me was such that a woman never can forgive, and she will understand that a man had better kill his wife than inflict upon her such shame and misery and humiliation as you inflicted upon me, a guiltless woman, as God is my Judge. She will know that you deserted me for another woman, and left me, a simple inexperienced girl, to battle alone with the pitiless world. Ah, how pitiless it is, how uncharitable, how cruel! How many nights have I passed shedding what might have been tears of blood, for they were wrung from a bruised and bleeding heart! She, who has lived with me many happy years in her childhood's life, will, when she reads this, be able to look back with the eyes of a woman upon the life I led while we were together, and she will know whether it was without stain and without reproach. She will have had experience both of you and myself, and of both our natures and minds, and she will have sense and intelligence enough to judge fairly between us. I repeat here, with all the strength of my soul, what I have declared before--that when you accused me of loving my cousin Ralph and of being false to you, you lied most foully.
I believe that I decided rightly when I decided to write these things. As you have acted towards your daughter, so shall be your reward. Whether it be for good or ill, you have earned it.
Your unhappy wife,
Frances.
After the last sheet of this letter, there were a few words in uncle Bryan's handwriting, evidently intended for my mother: 'If you see her whom I scarcely dare call my daughter for the shame which overwhelms me, tell her but one thing from me--that her mother's suspicions concerning the woman I befriended are unfounded. She will believe this, perhaps; it is the truth.'
[CHAPTER XLIII.]
A HAPPY RECOVERY.
The perusal of this letter affected me powerfully. There was something solemn in the mere handling of a confession written by a woman long since dead--a woman who had been so cruelly wronged and had so cruelly suffered. It was like a voice from the tomb, and it was impossible to resist the conviction that forced itself upon my mind that it was the solemn, bitter truth.
I had never suspected that Jessie was in any way related to uncle Bryan, but it did not surprise me to learn it. The fact that she was my cousin brought with it no sense of pleasure; it gave me no claim on her affection. Rather would she be inclined to look with feelings of repugnance upon all who were connected with her by blood, for by the nearest of these her mother had been brought to misery and shame, and her own life had been made most unhappy; and it was not to be doubted that all her soul would rise in vindication of her mother's honour.