I then thought your Father had pronounced the religious test, I will not call it Bigotry, which has caused more blood and tears than any other cause in the world, if your Father did counsel in that matter, as you decided I wish simply that you would just ask him, who would have yealded if there had been the same point of difference between him and his wife??137
A few days later new objections arose from Mrs. Glover’s family. Patterson wrote her, “You say they have heard ‘Dark things.’ ” He protested the slander which had apparently been at work defaming his character, and offered to take Mark Baker to every place where he had ever lived so that Mark might enquire of the best citizens as to his life and reputation.138 Instead of sending this letter, however, he wrote another the next day:
It seems that I have lost you at last—That you have made your final decision against me—and refuse to see me again, and there is nothing left for me to do but submit to your decree—
I thought I would at first vindicate my Moral character, and prepared a letter for your Father’s perusal—but on more mature deliberation, and knowing that you had become dissatisfied with my Disposition and wished—yes had already irrevocably dismissed me, I concluded to withhold all I had written.139
This was not the end, however. For one thing, he was still working on her teeth occasionally, and this gave him an opportunity at the same time to mend his fences. Before the end of April their differences were smoothed over, and the engagement was again in force. Some lingering doubts on Mrs. Glover’s part may have contributed to the condition about which she wrote him on April 29:
I am sick—Wed. afternoon my illness increased. . . . Neuralgia in the spine and stomach seems to be the cause, producing a state of nervous inflamation. My sufferings are at times extreme I do want to see you.