"No, it is impossible. You cannot but be aware that my life or

liberty is in serious jeopardy, and that my place in Parliament

and in public life is in constant and hourly peril. Every letter

that you have written to me shows plainly that you know it. And

when you say your heart's blood runs cold at the thought of what

may happen when Minghelli returns from England, you betray the

weakness, the natural weakness, the tender and womanly weakness,

which justifies me in saying that, as long as we love each other,

you and I should never meet again.

"Don't think that I am a coward and tremble at the death that

hangs over me. I neither fear the future nor regret the past. In

every true cause some one is called to martyrdom. To die for the

right, for humanity, to lay down all you hold most dear for the

sake of the poor and the weak and the down-trodden and God's holy

justice--it is a magnificent duty, a privilege! And I am ready. If

my death is enough, let me give the last drop of my blood, and be

dragged through the last degrees of infamy. Only don't let me drag

another after me, and endanger a life that is a thousand times

dearer to me than my own.

"I want you, dearest, I want you with my soul, but my doom is

certain; it waits for me somewhere; it may be here, it may be

there; it may come to me to-morrow, or next day, or next year,

but it is coming, I feel it, I am sure of it, and I will not fly

away. But if I go on until my beloved is my bride, and my name is

stamped all over her, and she has taken up my fate, and we are

one, and the world knows no difference, what then? Then death with

its sure step will come in to separate us, and after death for me,

danger, shame, poverty for you, all the penalties a woman pays for

her devotion to a man who is down and done.

"I couldn't bear it. The very thought of it would unman me. It

would turn heaven into hell. It would disturb the repose of the

grave itself.

"Isn't it hard enough to do what is before me without tormenting

myself with thoughts like these? It is true I have had my dreams

like other men--dreams of the woman whom Heaven might give a man

for his support--the anchor to which his soul might hold in storm

and tempest, and in the very hour of death itself. But what woman

is equal to a lot like that? Martyrdom is for man. God keep all

women safe from it!




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