love her with all my power of loving and
I am thankful that it is so. It would have been hard to die
without having known love. I am glad that it has come to me,
even if its price is unspeakable bitterness. A man has not
lived for nothing who has known and loved Sylvia Stanleymain.

I must not seek her love--that is denied me. If I were well
and strong I should win it; yes, I believe I could win it, and
nothing in the world would prevent me from trying, but, as
things are, it would be the part of a coward to try. Yet I
cannot resist the delight of being with her, of talking to
her, of watching her wonderful face. She is in my thoughts day
and night, she dwells in my dreams. O, Sylvia, I love you, my
sweet!

A week later there was another entry:

July Seventeenth.

I am afraid. To-day I met Sylvia's eyes. In them was a look
which at first stirred my heart to its deeps with tumultuous
delight, and then I remembered. I must spare her that
suffering, at whatever cost to myself. I must not let myself
dwell on the dangerous sweetness of the thought that her heart
is turning to me. What would be the crowning joy to another
man could be only added sorrow to me.

Then:

July Eighteenth.

This morning I took the train to the city. I was determined to
know the worst once for all. The time had come when I must. My
doctor at home had put me off with vague hopes and perhapses.
So I went to a noted physician in the city. I told him I
wanted the whole truth--I made him tell it. Stripped of all
softening verbiage it is this: I have perhaps eight months or
a year to live--no more!

I had expected it, although not quite so soon. Yet the
certainty was none the less bitter. But this is no time for
self-pity. It is of Sylvia I must think now. I shall go away
at once, before the sweet fancy which is possibly budding in
her virgin heart shall have bloomed into a flower that might
poison some of her fair years.

July Nineteenth.

It is over. I said good-bye to her to-day before others, for I
dared not trust myself to see her alone. She looked hurt and
startled, as if someone had struck her. But she will soon
forget, even if I have not been mistaken in the reading of her
eyes.