r mine, and I am glad
that it is so, because your happiness is the thing which I most
desire.

"I have not wanted to think of you up there in the hills. You belong
to the sea, dear girl, and I know you are missing it, as we are
missing you. I know, too, that, as you read this, you will say: 'He is
overstepping bounds. He must not write these things to me.' But I am
going to write them, Diana, for the time has come when we must face
the big truths, and let the half-truths go.

"The big truth is this--that you and I love each other. The half-truth
is--that Bettina loves me, and that I must not break her heart.

"I am troubled about Bettina. Certainly the child is not happy. All of
her brightness has left her. She is pale and thin, and I am too wise a
physician of bodies not to know something, too, of hearts. You may say
that my attitude has affected her; that she had felt instinctively the
difference in me. But it is not that. I am sure it is not that. When
I asked her to-night if there was anything between us, she faltered
that she had something to tell me that she would write.

"Perhaps I should wait until her letter comes, but I cannot wait. You
are so vividly with me at this moment, Diana, that I can almost hear
your voice calling above the noise of the wind and waves. I can see
you as I like you best--all in white. I can feel your presence as I
felt it that night in the empty house as you stood on the threshold of
that moonlighted room.

"Oh, dear girl, come back to me. I must have you in my life. Otherwise
it will be a thwarted life--and a lonely one. For whether you marry me
or not, I will not marry Betty. I do not love her, and she shall not
spend her days as the unloved wife of one whose thoughts are all with
a wonder-woman up in the hills.

"Can't you see it as I do? We must not so profane marriage, Betty and
I. There is no idea of honor so false as that which holds a man or a
woman to a promise which has ceased to have a vital and a vivid
meaning.

"No man has a right to plan for a home unless Love is to be the
corner-stone. These things are sacred, and not to be spoken of except
to those who understand. But my love for you and your love for me
would form a barrier against all the sweet and tender meanings for
Betty of wifehood and motherhood.

"That's the plain truth of it. I'm a blunt man, and I've said it as it
has come t