May the fierce flames of this great ordeal, find gold in your character beyond the reach of fire.

Farewell, forever! and may God bless and keep you! The prayer is from a heart yet free from guile, and the lips that breathe it upward are as pure as when you laid upon them the marriage kiss! God keep them as guileless and as pure! Amen! "JESSIE." Dexter accepted the decision of his wife as final.

What else was left for him?
He would have been the dullest of men not to have seen the spirit of this answer, shining everywhere through the letter.
Something more than feebly dawned the conviction in his mind, that he had foully wronged his wife, and that the fearful calamity which had overtaken him in the morning of his days, was of his own creating.

He did not again attempt to see her; made no further remonstrance; offered no kind of annoyance.

A profound respect for the suffering woman who had abandoned him, took the place of indignation against her.