It need hardly be said that the woman by whom these letters were written

had no thought that they would be read by anyone but the person to whom

they were addressed. But a request, conveyed under circumstances which

the writer herself would have regarded as all-commanding, urges that

they should now be given to the world; and, so far as is possible with a

due regard to the claims of privacy, what is here printed presents the

letters as they were first written in their complete form and sequence.

Very little has been omitted which in any way bears upon the devotion of

which they are a record. A few names of persons and localities have been

changed; and several short notes (not above twenty in all), together

with some passages bearing too intimately upon events which might be

recognized, have been left out without indication of their omission.

It was a necessary condition to the present publication that the

authorship of these letters should remain unstated. Those who know will

keep silence; those who do not, will not find here any data likely to

guide them to the truth.

The story which darkens these pages cannot be more fully indicated while

the feelings of some who are still living have to be consulted; nor will

the reader find the root of the tragedy explained in the letters

themselves. But one thing at least may be said as regards the principal

actors--that to the memory of neither of them does any blame belong.

They were equally the victims of circumstances, which came whole out of

the hands of fate and remained, so far as one of the two was concerned,

a mystery to the day of her death.




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