Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/259

Rh “that he must marry her or be miserable.” “She refused to look on him as a lover,” continued Mrs. Story, “and insisted that it was not fitting, — that it was best he should marry a younger woman; that she would be his friend but not his wife. In this way it rested for some weeks, during which we saw Ossoli pale, dejected, and unhappy. He was always with her, but in a sort of hopeless, desperate manner, until at length he convinced her of his love, and she married him.”

After this followed the siege of Rome, and Margaret Fuller's service in the hospitals, — as already described in Mr. Cass’s letter, — while Ossoli was in the army outside the city. One day, after great anxiety, she called Mrs. Story to her, and confided to her the secret of her marriage, showing her the marriage certificate and those relating to the birth of her child. These she confided to Mrs. Story, with a book containing the narrative of her whole acquaintance with her husband. The papers were kept for a time by Mrs. Story, and at length returned to Madame Ossoli; and every trace of them is now lost forever. The conclusion of Mrs. Story’s narrative will now be given almost entire, its picture of the married life of the Ossolis being too valuable to be omitted. Like the passages just quoted, this has never before been printed: —

… “At once, Ossoli, Margaret, and the child went to Florence. Rome was shut upon them, and they had