shine played in her eyes and
about her mouth. Where were you, Herbert? This night will never return.
Yet what has been was for you--the more, perhaps, that you seemed away.
So it is with lovers. She thinks you love her.

"I am sorry for your mood," she said. "You are holding yourself to
account these days in a way I know." Then she spoke, and I learned with
new heaviness of spirit that she does know the way of it. You never
thought Hester had much to struggle with?

"I am difficult," she said. And again, "There are times when no power
can hold me." Then she quoted Browning:--

"Already how am I so far
Out of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,
Fixed by no friendly star?"

"Are you unhappy, Hester?" I asked.

"Yes, but with no more reason than you for your unhappiness. Since you
have come here, you have renewed your demands upon yourself. You wish to
go to school with the youngest and find you cannot. You suffer because
more seems behind you than before." Her voice rose as if she were
fighting tears. It was different with her, I told her. Nothing was
behind her.

"You test your work and I test my love. When you are sad, it is because
the soul of the song spent itself to gain body--" She did not finish.
Why is she sad? Because the soul of her love is narrower than she hoped?

On our return from our walk she sank on the seat under the '95 oak. "Did
you think I meant I was always unhappy?" she asked. Her words seem
always to say more than her meaning. She imparts something of her own
elaborateness to them. I laughed.

"How could I with the 'Herbert is' in my ears?" Then her love became
voluble. I forgot what I knew of your theories and grew aflame with her
ardour. I anticipated as largely as she. She was again possessed by her
hopes.

There, under the shadow of the quadrangle which her young strides
measured, she spoke of what, with you in her life, the years must be.
Beyond words you are blessed, Herbert. But if she mistakes?

D.K.

XXXV

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
November 27, 19--.

Be outspoken! What will happen I can only surmise, but you must tell her
what she is to you. Set her right.

This is the fourth letter in seven days about Hester. I am endeavouring
to make you acquainted with her. I had no need if you loved her. How she
loves you! Yet she thinks that your calm is depth, y