o gay, so cheerful and kind to me, that I had
not the heart to disturb her peace. Yesterday I could not understand
how a being so full of simplicity had got me under her power and
conquered me even on those fields I thought my exclusive domain.
To-day it seems clearer to me; and I have a ready and very sad
hypothesis,--she loves me less than I love her.

I knew a man who had the trick of repeating in all his sentences,
"Never mind me." It would not be strange if I began to do the same.
For when I feel, as I do sometimes, a desire to get rid of some words
that almost burn my tongue, the sudden thought that I might mar her
cheerfulness, drive away the smile, and change her good disposition,
renders me mute. Ah me! how often this does happen!

The thought that I love Aniela more than she loves me has crossed my
mind a hundred times; one day I think of it in one way, the next in
another. I am straying among my thoughts and look at the matter in a
different light every day. At one time it seems to me that she does
not care for me very much, in fact is incapable of any strong feeling;
and again, I not only think but am conscious that she has one of the
deepest and most loving hearts I ever met in the world. I have always
plenty of proofs either way. Thus I say to myself: "If her love
increases, three, four, ten times as much, will there not come a time
when it will grow stronger than her resistance?" Yes. Then it is only
a question of how great her feeling is? No. For if the feeling were
small she would not have suffered so much, and I have seen her suffer
almost as much as I did myself. Against all reasoning I have one
answer: "I have seen."

To-day a sentence escaped her which I shall remember, for it is an
answer to my doubts. She would not have said this had I spoken about
us and our love. But I spoke in a general way, as I now always do.
I argued that it lay in the nature of feeling to be connected with
action; that love produces acts of will. When I had finished she said
quietly:--

"Not always. One may suffer."

Of course one may suffer. With these few words she had crushed my
arguments and filled my heart with reverence for her. In moments like
these I am happy and unhappy, as again it seems to me that she loves
me as I love her, but will remain pure before God, and men, and
herself. And I shall not be able to shake that temple. When all is
said and done this analysis of her heart and feelings does not lead to