He is the reminder of my loss. Reminder? Do I ever
forget? Am I not thinking of that before his notes lash my memory
at dawn? All day can they do more than furrow deeper the channel
of unforgetfulness? Little does he dream what my friendship for
him has cost me. But this solace I have at heart--that I was not
even tempted to betray him.

Three days more have passed. No sign yet that Georgiana will
relent soon or ever. Each day the strain becomes harder to bear.
My mind has dwelt upon my last meeting with her, until the truth
about it weavers upon my memory like vague, uncertain shadows.
She doubted my love for her. What proof was it she demanded? I
must stop looking at the red-bird, lying here and there under the
trees, and listening to him as he sings above me. My eyes devour
him whenever he crosses my path with an uncomprehended fascination
that is pain. How gentle he has become, and how, without intending
it, I have deepened the perils of his life by the very gentleness
that I have brought upon him. Twice already the fate of his species
has struck at him, but I have pledged myself to be his friend.
This is his happiest season; a few days now, and he will hear the
call of his young in the nest.

I shut myself in my workshop in the yard this morning. I did not
wish my servants to know. In there I made a bird-trap such as I
had often used when a boy. And late this afternoon I went to town
and bought a bird-cage. I was afraid the merchant would misjudge
me, and explained. He scanned my face silently. To-morrow I will
snare the red-bird down behind the pines long enough to impress on
his memory a life-long suspicion of every such artifice, and then
I will set him free again in his wide world of light. Above all
things, I must see to it that he does not wound himself or have
the least feather broken.

It is far past midnight now, and I have not slept or wished for
slumber.

Constantly since darkness came on I have been watching Georgiana's
window for the light of her candle, but there has been no kindly
glimmer yet. The only radiance shed upon the gloom outside comes
from the heavens. Great cage-shaped white clouds are swung up to
the firmament, and within these pale, gentle, imprisoned lightnings
flutter feebly to escape, fall back, rise, and try again and again,
and fail.

. . . _A little after dark this evening I carried the red-bird
over to Georgiana_. . . .

I have seen her so lit