concerted, conscious of
the vague recklessness and veiled reproach--dragging him back from the
present through the dead years to confront once more the old pain, the
old bewilderment at the hopeless misunderstanding between them.

He wrote in answer:

"For the first time in my life I am going to write you some
unpleasant truths. I cannot comprehend what you have written; I
cannot interpret what you evidently imagine I must divine in these
pages--yet, as I read, striving to understand, all the old familiar
pain returns--the hopeless attempt to realise wherein I failed in
what you expected of me.

"But how can I, now, be held responsible for your unhappiness and
unrest--for the malicious attitude, as you call it, of the world
toward you? Years ago you felt that there existed some occult
coalition against you, and that I was either privy to it or
indifferent. I was not indifferent, but I did not believe there
existed any reason for your suspicions. This was the beginning of
my failure to understand you; I was sensible enough that we were
unhappy, yet could not see any reason for it--could see no reason
for the increasing restlessness and discontent which came over you
like successive waves following some brief happy interval when your
gaiety and beauty and wit fairly dazzled me and everybody who came
near you. And then, always hateful and irresistible, followed the
days of depression, of incomprehensible impulses, of that strange
unreasoning resentment toward me.

"What could I do? I don't for a moment say that there was nothing I
might have done. Certainly there must have been something; but I
did not know what. And often in my confusion and bewilderment I was
quick-tempered, impatient to the point of exasperation--so utterly
unable was I to understand wherein I was failing to make you
contented.

"Of course I could not shirk or avoid field duty or any of the
details which so constantly took me away from you. Also I began to
understand your impatience of garrison life, of the monotony of the
place, of the climate, of the people. But all this, which I could
not help, did not account for those dreadful days together when I
could see that every minute was widening the breach between us.

"Alixe--your letter has brought it all back, vivid, distressing,