Finding I could not quiet Lucille, I concluded to rid myself of all responsibility in her case.
Call me base if you will!
Was I doing more than hundreds of men are doing in New York to-day!
Had I done more than hundreds—aye, thousands—of men have done in New York?
You are a man of education and means; denounce me if you have never sinned likewise.
Let any New York man of education, leisure and money denounce me, if any there are who have not likewise blundered.
It was only a matter of a few days’ amusement, harmless if it ended quietly.
But I slipped up on it—therein lies the sin. Not in what I did, but in blundering over it.
People may say what they will. I was not wrong. It is the system that is wrong, the system that prevents people who care for each other from being happy in that affection while it lasts. Had the system been different Lucille would have been home to-day, happier and in more comfortable circumstances than previous to our meeting, and I—I would not now be writing to you.
But there was nothing to save us.