Come back soon, my own, my sweet [he wrote]. Come back and let
this Winter be all forgotten. I climbed up to the top of the
church tower to-day, and oh, the tulips in your garden, and oh,
the emptiness of that garden notwithstanding! Come back, my
Pauline, for you'll see the iris buds in the paddock and you've no
idea of the way in which that river of ours sparkles on these
April mornings. I wish I could tell you how remote this Winter
already has grown. It has crept out of memory like a dejected
nightmare at breakfast. You are never to think again about the
stupid things I've said about religion: think only, my dearest,
that I hope always for your faith. It would be dishonest of me to
say that I believe now exactly as you believe, but I want to
believe like that. Perhaps I'm illogical in writing this: perhaps
all the time I do believe. Forget too what I said about
Confession. I would almost go myself to prove my penitence (to
you!), but I just can't bring myself to do that, because for me it
really would be useless and would turn me against everything you
count as holy. Forget all that has cast a shadow on our love.
Count it all as my heedlessness and be confident that I alone was
to blame. I would write more, but letters are such impossible
things for intimacy. Some people can pour out their souls on
paper: I can't. That's really what my poems suffer from. I have
been working at them again since you were away, and they have a
kind of coldness, a sort of awkward youthful reserve. Perhaps
that's better than youthful exuberance, and yet I don't know. One
can prune the too prodigal growth, but one can't always be sure of
having the prodigality when one has the maturity. The metaphors
seem to be getting rather tied up, and you must be bored by now
with my chattering criticism.

Your mother came to tea yesterday and brought Monica. Margaret is
rather in seclusion at present on account of Richard's arrival, I
fancy. She's obviously dreading other people's notice. It is a
rather self-conscious business, this waiting for the arrival of
some one whom everybody expects is going to play such an important
part in her life. If we were separated now for two years, it would
be different; but I can see that Margaret is dreadfully afraid
that now, ha