October 27,1812

f ever I could banish the emotions of my heart like the traitors they are, I would exile them to plague me no more. My tedious days of anticipation for a letter from the Doctor were finally broken by receipt of one at breakfast just this morn. My unequivocal joy could not have been more profound when I saw the neat yet hurried script of his across the front and felt his familiar seal against my fingertips, and immediately I excused myself to my room. I tore open the note with unreserved haste and poured over the words, drinking each one in as if it were water and I was dying of thirst. Mrs. Hegwood graciously permitted me the solitude to which now, hours later, I am grateful.

But my bliss was cut down so abruptly and dreadfully as I was to learn what his fate was to be. The Doctor is traveling to England, and is no doubt already aboard the treacherous ship to take him away. I have read his letter again, and again, and again and as morning drifted into afternoon, and afternoon has now stolen into a bitterly cold evening whilst I have wept and raged, the words I read I still refuse to believe as truth. To be so cruelly torn from my home in England and all that I loved only to have the single pleasure and single friend I have on this cursed continent snatched from my life is by all reason too hard a thing to bear. How shall I ever endure Mr. Vincent without the Doctor? I am certain that I cannot, and there is no strength to be drawn other than in what words I am lucky enough to receive should he write to me. There is nothing left for me to draw sanity from in the utter absurdity of my life.

Until I read this letter, which short of providing me with such afflicting news, gave me some comfort, I could not make any sort of sense in my feeling towards the Doctor. Now, though, the discovery has come too late, and is now utterly useless to me, and all for naught, for perhaps he will never return to us, and I will remain with the Hegwoods until old age and infirmity take me. I will not make the same mistake I made with Mr. B ---, and my feelings this time shall die unspoken with my last breath. I could not possibly suffer another such heartbreak, and he shall never know of them, and I fear I shall never see him again. Perhaps it is an entirely misplaced foreboding, but the whispers of a war between England and America place a sharp dagger of distress within my breast on the Doctor's behalf. I cannot think upon these baleful fabrications any longer, I shall go entirely mad with dread.

As it stands, I can only wait, or perhaps try to forget. I pray that Mrs. Hegwood allow me my sorrow, and grant me my peace in asking me no questions for my hours of isolation, as I have yet to set foot out of the safety of my bedroom since receiving the letter. I fear I am unable to speak upon it presently, and as I write the tears continue to stain my pages and distort my words. I can only write to him now, and obey his earnest request that our correspondence continue, regardless of circumstances, and endeavor not to convey my entirely distraught heart through my words, nor betray what it is I am all too afraid has occurred within me, for though I have fought it since I had even a tiny notion of it, the truth is so very plain that I am hopelessly in love with him, and now he is gone.