e they stood against the sky,--how I had watched
them, how I knew them,--oh, my heart, how I loved them! And it came
to me suddenly how hatefully I had been loving them.

Two women passed us on the road; they spoke of their dead, and one
of them said, "It is God's will."

I stood still and laughed aloud, so that my dears turned, wondering.
But I have repeated it to myself ever since. The woman spoke the
truth. For, God or no God, there is a Might against which we cannot
stand, and woe be unto those that lift their little wills against
the will of Nature. When two love, they must belong to each other;
when one loves, Miserere.

I will wait a day or two, until I have learned my lesson well, until
I am strong; then I will do what must be done. But I must first be
strong, test my strength to the uttermost, and tell myself every
day, "She will be his; she will take the joy that shone into your
eyes; you will have nothing, nothing."

Then I must try to realise that thought and bear it nobly; for to
make a sacrifice and bear it ill is beneath contempt.

_July 9th._--How beautiful love is! Now that, one by one, I am
breaking the tendrils from the wall, and shall soon hold Love in my
hand, an emblem merely, clinging to nothing, I see all that is
divine in it. I myself am selfish, earth-smeared; yet by means of
this talisman I am to be heroic, even I, finding joy in the gift I
prepare for others through the tearing of my heart, the outpouring
of my own blood. It is a blessed madness. Sober, I could not.

To-day one week remains. Gabriel said to me just now, "In a week,
Emilia, we shall be gone."

"Yes, dear," said I; and I wondered at his strength, at his loyalty
to me.

How comes it, I wonder, that it took me so long to find the small
straight path. I must hasten now and be ready soon; he has suffered
all too long. And Constance is thin, her eyes hang heavily, she
helps me prepare my wedding clothes, and is gay, to hide what she
cannot. She often says:

"How slow you are! Hurry up, my solemn bride, or we shall never be
ready."

"Ready enough," say I.

To-day I went to Mrs. Rayner, and begged her to approach her
solicitor on the question of obtaining Constance's divorce. My
ignorance of these matters is absolute, yet surely this is possible.
Gabriel once led me to believe she could obtain her divorce without
difficulty.

"But a divorce is so scandalous," said Mrs. Rayner.

"Not so scandalous," I replied, "as