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Friday 4" The weather is still cool and dark. Shortly after I came to my room Charlie Duncan came in. I was glad to see him, shared him my Western Sketches and tried to make him feel easy with me. I saw however that he was a little preoccupied and finally he said if I would talk with him he would like me to. I told him I would if he wished, for I had entire respect and affection for him and feel that I could speak frankly to him, as I certainly should if we talked at all. He began by assuming a certain amount of responsibility for the letter which Laura wrote Sara, and which he told me the last time I saw him he had never seen. I at once discerned his magnanimity in thus trying to shield his wife and respected his intention while I confess I was not entirely convinced of the fact. He spoke of the grief it was to Laura and to Joe to have this state of feeling, but I reminded him it was Joes deliberate choice most persistently pursued. I went over the catalogue of what he has done and then I told him frankly I had lost all affection and all respect I ever had for him and that I hoped I would never see him again. He insisted that he never spoke except kindly of me and that he was strongly attached to me and to us all. I replied he had a poor way of showing it, as exemplified in his demand that Charlie should cease his business connection with me. He contended that in spite of these things he was a noble character. I said nothing to this. I told him his whole course had been a persistent endeavor to annoy us and that finally he had come in with the deliberate intention of contesting my fathers will and was only dissuaded by the earnest efforts of his friend. Of this I had proof which could not be questioned. He admitted that I had given Joe the best of advice the last time I saw him and regretted her had not acted upon it, and said that Joe had told him I had helped him and lifted him out of his misery by my kind sympathy. I said there was his fatal mistake that he did not keep his faith with me, for all would have been forgotten by this time. He spoke of how difficult for the girls to have anything to do with us while we would not accept their father and I replied that on no other conditions could they and reiterated that I never wanted to see him again and it would be wisest for him to keep away from me. With regard to influencing his children against them I told him we not only disclaimed any such intention but that in the last letter I had written to Laura I expressly stated that it was her first duty to be loyal to him, I also said that if I had wished to prejudice them I knew of facts in his relation to his wife which perhaps they thought I did not know, which I could never forget and which, had I been inclined I might have used to his serious damage. He was silent for he too, I am sure knows of his cruelty to her. In speaking of the embarassment to Laura of meeting us I frankly said I thought it best we should
not meet. He said she justified her position and I told him that so long as she did that anything like a reconciliation was impossible. I told him I did not wish to seem cruel. I only wanted him to thoroughly understand my position and I thought my position was that of all the rest of us and that we all thought alike in this subject. I said if Laura goes to Rondout we will receive her as kindly as we can on condition that she does not talk upon the subject, for that we will not do, because it is more than useless. Charlie  was very thoughtful but comprehended the gravity of the situation." Well