t know it. But I knew it
when you came and brought with you a sense of completion and
fulfilment. This has been the precious year of my life, the
turning-point to which all things past tended and all things
future must look back. Oh, my dear, I thank you for this year!
It has been your royal gift to me, and I shall be rich and
great forever because of it. Nothing can ever take it from me,
nothing can mar it. It were well to have lived a lifetime of
loneliness for such a boon--the price would not be too high. I
would not give my one perfect summer for a generation of other
men's happiness.

There are those in the world who would laugh at me, who would
pity me, Una. They would say that the love I have poured out
in secret at your feet has been wasted, that I am a poor weak
fool to squander all my treasure of affection on a woman who
does not care for me and who is as far above me as that great
white star that is shining over the sea. Oh, my dear, they do
not know, they cannot understand. The love I have given you
has not left me poorer. It has enriched my life unspeakably;
it has opened my eyes and given me the gift of clear vision
for those things that matter; it has been a lamp held before
my stumbling feet whereby I have avoided snares and pitfalls
of baser passions and unworthy dreams. For all this I thank
you, dear, and for all this surely the utmost that I can give
of love and reverence and service is not too much.

I could not have helped loving you. But if I could have helped
it, knowing with just what measure of pain and joy it would
brim my cup, I would have chosen to love you, Una. There are
those who strive to forget a hopeless love. To me, the
greatest misfortune that life could bring would be that I
should forget you. I want to remember you always and love you
and long for you. That would be unspeakably better than any
happiness that could come to me through forgetting.

Dear lady, good night. The sun has set; there is now but one
fiery dimple on the horizon, as if a golden finger had dented
it--now it is gone; the mists are coming up over the sea.

A kiss on each of your white hands, dear. Tonight I am too
humble to lift my thoughts to your lips.

The schoolmaster folded up his letter and held it against his cheek
for a little space while he gazed out on