“Dear James,” the letter read, “I was never more depressed in my life than I was after your departure; you must know that I would be.  In the first place, Reverdy is so very fond of you and esteems you so much, and that counts with me.  For he is the best and truest man I have ever known.  And I am sure that you are honorable and kind; and you have asked me to be your wife, and any woman worth noticing is moved by a request like that if she has any respect for the man whatever.  But this seems to me the most terrible situation that a girl could be placed in.  I have thought it over until my mind goes around in a circle, and I cannot relate things clearly any more.  And of course I have talked it all over with mother.  You can be sure I would not take the pains to do this, nor the pains to write you in detail, if you had not entered my mind in a serious way.  Frankly the only misgivings I have of you, and I beg you to forgive me for saying this, is the fact that your father would do such a thing.  I cannot understand it, my mother can’t.  What was he that he could do such a thing with the prospect that he would injure you, his son by another marriage, in so many ways and so deeply?  He could not have overlooked these things; nor the feeling that exists in America, particularly in the South, against such an alliance.  But putting these things out of mind, you cannot possibly assure me, or any other woman, against the future.  There are the property interests; but if these were out of the way there is the relationship.  And I blame myself deeply, for I knew that Zoe was your sister almost as soon as I first came to Jacksonville.  With this knowledge I should not have come to your parties or put myself in a way to be liked by you.  I should have only been polite to you when you came to Reverdy’s house.  For any other association, I ask you to forgive me.  I have written you many letters, and then torn them up.  Perhaps I shall send this one.  It is as good as I can do.  It says everything now except that I am profoundly unhappy, that I shall never see you again—­and to wish you happiness under the circumstances fills my throat with a kind of suffocation.  And so I write farewell—­and can hardly mean it—­and yet it must be farewell.”

A kind of calmness came over me as I read the last word.  There are anxiety and fear, and stir and ministration while the sick are alive.  But with death there is quiet in the house.  Calmness comes to those who have striven to heal and to save.  And with the words “farewell” before my eyes a dumb resignation came into my heart.  Dorothy was gone from me and forever!  But here was my life left to me to work out, and my ambition to pursue.  I grew suddenly strong and full of will.  I walked to the door and gazed for some minutes over the prairie.  Then I saddled a horse and went to find Reverdy.

It was something to see the brother of the woman I loved; but I must find Zoe if possible.

Reverdy was off somewhere with Douglas.  Douglas was working upon the plan of introducing the political convention system in Illinois, as it prevailed in New York.  He wished to step from the state’s attorneyship into the legislatureship.  He had newspaper supporters; he had many friends, as well as many foes.  But he was fighting his way.