If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am
now willing to release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other
hand, I am willing and even anxious to bind you faster, if I can be
convinced that it will in any considerable degree add to your happiness.
This, indeed, is the whole question with me."
All that we know of the sequel is contained in a letter which Lincoln
wrote to his friend Mrs. Browning nearly a year later, after Miss Owens
had finally returned to Kentucky, in which, without mentioning the
lady's name, he gave a seriocomic description of what might be called a
courtship to escape matrimony. He dwells on his disappointment at her
changed appearance, and continues:
"But what could I do? I had told her sister that I would take her for
better or for worse, and I made a point of honor and conscience in all
things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act
on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had; for I was now fairly
convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the
conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. 'Well,'
thought I, 'I have said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it
shall not be my fault if I fail to do it....' All this while, although I
was fixed 'firm as the surge-repelling rock' in my resolution, I found I
was continually repenting the rashness which had led me to make it.
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