ught.--I wonder what you feared? But you must have been sure of
one thing, at least,--that my heart was with you!

"Dane! I want you to burn this letter after you have read it. I must
tell you all that is in my heart, but it is best for both of us that it
should not be preserved. I was going to say, that you should forget it,
but I know that will not be possible.

"I am going to stay at my post, Dane, and try to make more of it than
I've done till now. I told you that in making my decision I had no
consideration for Bernard, but that was a mistake. I _must_ consider
him, for he is the principal person in life. He does not love me, but
since coming here, I have begun to see that that is partly my own fault.
I was very young when we married, and I took it for granted that he
would remain for ever an adoring lover. When he grew cool and
careless--it was humiliatingly soon!--my miserable pride made me treat
him as indifferently as he treated me, and so we have grown apart. I
thought he was incapable of tenderness, but watching him with his
mother, I wonder if it is simply that I have shown no need. Oh! I've
made a failure of it all--with the boy too, it seems, though I _did_
love him; I did pour out my love... What is wrong with me, that the
people who should love me _don't_, and when someone comes along who
does, we must be parted?

"Did you think I should come to you that night? Now that it is past and
over, I can tell you that I very nearly did! An impulse came over me
about nine o'clock, so overwhelmingly strong, that it was all I could do
not to rush out, as I was, and make my way to you, bareheaded, across
the park. The effort to resist left me cold and faint.--I wondered if
you were thinking of me, willing me to come! And once again, though
never quite so violently, the impulse returned, but each time I
resisted, and the end finds me here, tied in a sick room, doing my duty,
and bidding you goodbye.

"It's hopeless, Dane; it's hopeless! There is too much between. You
must banish me from your life, and make the most of what is left. Isn't
it strange how in one of our first real talks we discussed makeshifts,
and I asked you if you could manage to be happy, if you were denied the
best. You answered so certainly; seemed to think it so poor-spirited to
waste life in regrets. My poor Dane, now you will have to turn your
words into deeds!

"By the time we return home, you will probably have left C