the plans we made together.

I don't seem to be telling you anything but a mess of words,
I am so full of such a mess of crowding emotions. I want to talk
and talk and talk myself into coherence. But, anyway, I stood
alone in the winter twilight, and I took a deep breath of clear
cold air, and I felt beautifully, wonderfully, electrically free.

And then I ran and leaped and skipped down the hill and across
the pastures toward our iron confines, and I sang to myself. Oh,
it was a scandalous proceeding, when, according to all precedent,
I should have gone trailing home with a broken wing. I never
gave one thought to poor Gordon, who was carrying a broken,
bruised, betrayed heart to the railroad station.

As I entered the house I was greeted by the joyous clatter of
the children trooping to their supper. They were suddenly MINE,
and lately, as my doom became more and more imminent, they had
seemed fading away into little strangers. I seized the three
nearest and hugged them hard. I have suddenly found such new
life and exuberance, I feel as though I had been released from
prison and were free. I feel,--oh, I'll stop,--I just want you
to know the truth. Don't show Jervis this letter, but tell him
what's in it in a decently subdued and mournful fashion.

It's midnight now, and I'm going to try to go to sleep. It's
wonderful not to be going to marry some one you don't want to
marry. I'm glad of all these children's needs, I'm glad of Helen
Brooks, and, yes, of the fire, and everything that has made me
see clearly. There's never been a divorce in my family, and they