The lady went on.
'My approaching marriage,' she said, 'has one embarrassing
circumstance connected with it. The gentleman whose wife I am to be,
was engaged to another lady when he happened to meet with me, abroad:
that lady, mind, being of his own blood and family, related to
him as his cousin. I have innocently robbed her of her lover,
and destroyed her prospects in life. Innocently, I say--because he told
me nothing of his engagement until after I had accepted him.
When we next met in England--and when there was danger, no doubt,
of the affair coming to my knowledge--he told me the truth.
I was naturally indignant. He had his excuse ready; he showed me
a letter from the lady herself, releasing him from his engagement.
A more noble, a more high-minded letter, I never read in my life.
I cried over it--I who have no tears in me for sorrows of my own!
If the letter had left him any hope of being forgiven, I would
have positively refused to marry him. But the firmness of it--
without anger, without a word of reproach, with heartfelt wishes
even for his happiness--the firmness of it, I say, left him no hope.
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