dear! I am so tired that I couldn't bear a scene. But you didn't think.
You took the kiss for a promise of what I was to be to you, when it only
meant what I might have been. Poor, dear boy! it was just a little stupid
of you not to guess. Did you suppose I would really marry you? Did you
really think I would let you pick up from the gutter a soiled rose to put
in your bosom when all the fields are full of fresh daisies? Oh, I love
you too well for that! Yes, dear, I love you. I've kept the secret pretty
well, haven't I? You see, loving you has made me more careful of your
honour than when in my first recklessness I said I would marry you in
spite of all. But don't think, dear, because I love you that it is a
sacrifice I make in not being your wife. I do truly love you, but I could
not be happy with you, for my happiness would be shame to the end. It
would be always with us as in the dismal weeks that now are over. The way
I love you is not the way I loved him, but it is a better way. I thought
perhaps you would like to know that you alone have any right to kiss my
lips in dreams. I speak plainly of things we never spoke of, for you know
people talk freely when night hides their faces from each other, and how
much more if they know that no morning shall ever come to make them
shamefaced again! A certain cold white hand will have wiped away the
flush of shame for ever from my face when you look on it again, for I
go this night to that elder and greater redeemer whose name is death.
Don't blame me, dear, and say I was not called away. Is it only when
death touches our bodies that we are called? Oh, I am called, I am
called, indeed!
"MADELINE."