And Tom riz up to his duties nobly, though it wuz with a sad heart, as wuz spozed, for Isabelle, when she see what had come onto him to do, wouldn't hold him to his engagement--she insisted on his bein' free.
I spoze she thought she wouldn't burden him with two more helpless ones, and then mebby she thought the two spans wouldn't mate very well.

And most probable they would have been a pretty cross match.

(I mean, that is, a sort of a melancholy, down-sperited yoke, and if anybody laughs at it, I would wish 'em to laugh in a sort of a mournful way.) Wall, Tom Freeman, after Isabelle sot him free, bein' partly mad and partly heart-broken, as is the way of men who are deep in love, and want their way, but anyway wantin' to keep out of the sight of the one who, if he couldn't have her for his own, he wanted to forgit--he packed up bag and baggage and went West.
Isabelle wouldn't correspond with him, so she told him in that last hour--still and calm on the outside, and her heart a-bleedin' on the inside, I dare presoom to say; no, she wanted him to feel free.
What creeters, what creeters wimmen be for makin' martyrs of themselves, and burnt sacrifices--sometimes I most think they enjoy it, and then agin I don't know! But Isabelle acted from a sense of duty, for she jest worshipped the ground Tom Freeman walked on, so everybody knew, and so she bid adieu to Tom and Happiness, and lived on.
Wall, one of 'em must stay at home with the old folks, either she or Christopher Columbus.

And when a man and a woman love each other as Isabelle and Krit did, when wuz it ever the case but what if there wuz any sacrificin' to do the woman wuz the one to do it.
It is her nater, and I don't know but a real true woman takes as much comfort in bein' sort o' onhappy for the sake of some one she loves, as she would in swingin' right out and a-enjoyin' herself first rate.
A woman who really loves anything has the makin' of a first-class martyr in her.

And though she may not be ever tied to a stake, and gridirons be fur removed from her, still she has a sort of a silent hankerin' or aptitude for martrydom.