[He sighs and the fiddler reprises some strains and chords from the "Prelude."]

I was immediately unnerved—unnerved by Charlotte's calm in the wake of the loss. Certainly, she was not happy and certainly she did not understand why I did not go ahead and leave her to look after our belongings, but she was not exactly disappointed either, as was I. I feared I would rot and implode in anger over the theft—or, furthermore, over the mere assertion that this single trunk had somehow "fallen" into the Bay, where surely it was robbed of $1,500 in coined gold!

Charlotte! Charlotte, oh I so wanted to yell, I wanted to yell at you! But, oh, I wouldn't dare! I wanted to yell because I wanted you to yell!

It was my fault! I know it was! Of course it was! I'd lost all of it! Everything! My papers, my journals, my books, $1,500 in coined gold and—most horribly—your treasured little library of textbooks—the ledger of all of those transient, orphaned siblings you'd cared for, of every pupil you'd known. I married you—an orphan—and I LOST the only scraps of a past you had!

I lost it all committing the very sin that had blackened my name! The one I'd so strenuously avoided: I'd overpacked!

Surely, I could have had you come a week or so later! Surely, you were right when we discussed how we would journey down to Monterey, when you suggested I go ahead alone! Surely, I was a fool to trust Sheriff McKinstry!

But, Charlotte, you wouldn't yell, would you? Oh, yes, all that waxes must in due time wane...I can hear you saying it now though you've been dead how long?

But, Charlotte, oh, Charlotte, as long as you lived, couldn't you understand that I needed a crisis? Man is a creature that thrives on redemption! Charlotte, I needed fears to allay!

How dare you accept "bad luck" when I had pledged my honor to protect you? How dare you take from me the chance to do just that? How dare you simply hope for something better a little down the road? How dare you throw that pledge away?

How dare you hear me curse and huff and say to me:

"Don't blame McKinstry."

Oh, then whom to blame? Blame me?! But surely—you would protest—you hadn't said that either.

So, I advertised for the lost trunk, so I could do something "constructive," so I could play the part of the fool in the newspapers, too.

Charlotte was not upset about the money. Again, she was not happy about it either—but then there were those books. Her textbooks. She was rattled by their loss—rattled! There was no other word for it.

The one thing that mattered was the one thing I could not replace: my guide was in print, which was basically my published journals; I had my mind left to recoup the loss of most of the other papers; the letters of marque could be requested once more and my books were a pity to lose, but could be bought once more...Charlotte's textbooks were another matter: they were her family—or at least her only record at an attempt to think of herself as having one as she grew up.

A month or so later, I was at the height of my influence at the Constitutional Convention, but I could not shake the loss. I should have felt myself at the high point of my career up to that point and I had only just turned 30! However, it was from that height that I could only wonder what it was that would break my fall.