"'DEAREST,
"'I am going away. I am not to be your wife. It was a happy dream, but a foolish one. I should have ruined your life. That has been made clear to me; I love you far too dearly to be your enemy. You will never see me again. Don't be unhappy about me. I shall be well cared for. I am going very far away; but if it were to the farthest end of the earth, and if I were to live a hundred years, I should never cease to love you, or learn to love you less.
"'Good-bye for ever,
"'ESPERANZA.'
"'I know whose hand is in this,' I said,—'Miss Marjorum.'
"'Miss Marjorum is my true and loyal friend, and yours too, though you may not believe it.'
"'Whoever it may be who has stolen my love away from me, that person is my dire and deadly foe. Whether the act is yours or hers, it is the act of my bitterest enemy, and I shall ever so remember it. Look here, mother, let there be no misunderstanding between you and me. I love this girl better than my life. Whatever trick you have played upon her, whatever cajoleries you and Miss Marjorum have brought to bear upon her, whatever false representations you may have made, appealing to her unselfishness against her love, you have done that which will wreck your son's life unless you can undo it.'
"'I have saved my son from the shipwreck his own folly would have made of his life,' my mother answered calmly. 'I have seen what these unequal marriages come to—before the wife is thirty.'
"'It would be no unequal marriage. The girl I love is a lady.'
"'A village organist's daughter, by her own confession totally without education. A pretty, delicate young creature with a certain surface refinement, I grant you; but do you think that would stand the wear and tear of life, or counterbalance your humiliation when people asked questions about your wife's antecedents and belongings? People, even the politest people, will ask those questions, George. My dear, dear boy, the thing you were to have done to-day would have been utter ruin to your social existence for the next fifty years. You will never be rich enough or great enough to live down such a marriage.'