n my
nerves, at times. So I wrote Terry, asking him to come and visit with me
for several days. It must have been my Jonah day, for the letter reached
him, and he came and stayed here with me for the whole seven days.
During this time we talked a great deal of our life together and of our
life since we have not been together, and with his most calm and
philosophical air he spoke of our circumstances, past and present. It
seemed so pleasant and homelike, so much like the old days, to have dear
Terry here with me, and I felt such lazy content to see and hear him,
that at times I awoke with a start, for I could not keep myself from the
idea that our separation was only a horrid dream.

"So, when he said things that ought to have hurt me dreadfully, I
positively couldn't feel hurt. Somehow, the sound of his voice was so
pleasing that I missed the sting of some of his pessimistic reflections
about our love; it seemed to me that he spoke of others, surely not of
our two selves! But now, since he has gone, and I have been forced to
think of the things he said, many of the easily accepted but only half
understood reflections on our love have come back to me with all their
sting. And I must now believe that I have passed out from Terry's life
utterly, and that there is no return, nor hope of return. The most I
could possibly hope for is an indifferent friendship, for so he has
willed it, or perhaps fate, rather, has so willed it. 'Dead love can
never return,' he said. And I am now only one of the people he knows! It
is so terrible that I must avoid the blow, must seek an independence of
my own.

"And I had such high hopes, such dreams of pillowing his dear head on my
bosom, and, alas! he would consider that intolerable. And, upon
reflection, his head would, in fact, rest very uneasily on my scrawny
breast!

"So I am trying to resign myself and to readjust what is left of my
life. It seems pitiful, though, that my life has been so commonplace all
through. Not one single exception, not one thing that ever happened to
me, or that I ever did, has been different from the experiences of all
the world. My life with Terry, which I surely expected would be
different, would be an exception to the commonplace love affairs of all
people, has now ended the same way as everyone else's.

"Well, I have had seven years of life, that is perhaps a little more
than some people have, and I ought to be satisfied with that. The
biggest chapter of