LOVE-LETTERS 
 
 OF A 
 
 WORLDLY WOMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD 
 
 AUTHOR OF " MRS. KEITH'S CRIME " ETC. 
 
 ' Wherefore ? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 1892 
 
PREFACE 
 
 2, 
 
 THESE be three women who loved the 
 world : not meaning (at least two of them) 
 the pomps and vanities, but the round world 
 itself and the people who belong to it. All 
 had the bandage lifted from their eyes, and 
 as they became wise proved how sad a thing 
 is wisdom. The first tried to comfort herself 
 with dreams ; and waits hoping that they will 
 find their way into the waking-hours. The 
 second played an eager, restless game, staking 
 all her happiness on it ; and perhaps gained 
 most when she had lost it. The third looked 
 up at sorrow, and, seeing a little way beyond, 
 set out on a journey ; but she does not know 
 yet where it will end. And the moral is but 
 morals are depressing even if they are edify- 
 ing : let us leave them to the Preacher. 
 
 L. C. 
 
 433567 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE i 
 
 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN . . 45 
 ON THE WANE . . 229 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 SHE. ON THE DULNESS OF GOODNESS 
 
 >T is a long time since we met 
 long, that is, as we have been 
 in the habit of measuring time 
 lately nearly a month. Two 
 months and meeting every day, 
 often twice a day, but never missing once ; 
 then a little pause, a flagging, a going-to- 
 town, and two days apart days that were 
 hard to bear for both of us ; then a week, 
 and now a fortnight. At first your letters 
 compensated me; now they do not. Are 
 they colder ? I do not know. Not in words, 
 perhaps, but they do not send a rush of 
 joy through me as they did a little while 
 since. They seem to come from your intel- 
 
2 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 lect, your good- nature, that would not like 
 me to feel neglected, your affectionate dis- 
 position, not from your heart. Are you be- 
 ginning to turn restive, to think things over, 
 to wonder how it was we found the past so 
 sweet that we were content to spend whole 
 days by the river-side, talking the driftless, 
 dreamy talk of happiness, or silently watch- 
 ing the river as it went on, seeking, per- 
 haps, the place which a little later our feet 
 would know but not together ? 
 
 I remember your telling me once was it 
 with dim foreboding of a future that now, 
 perhaps, draws near? that women took 
 things more seriously than men. They are 
 the foolish women. I am going to be wise 
 to remember as long as you remember, 
 and forget as soon. I think I am doing so 
 already if you are. Why should man, who 
 is strong, always get the best of it, and be 
 forgiven so much ; and woman, who is weak, 
 get the worst and be forgiven so little ? Why 
 should you go and laugh and be merry, and 
 I stay waiting and listening ? But this shall 
 not be, for I am not the woman to sit and 
 weep while the world is wide and the days 
 are long, and there are many to to love me ? 
 I do not know : to come and make a sweet 
 pretence of love ; and who shall say how 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 3 
 
 much or how little heart will be in it ? It is 
 delightful to be a woman yes, even in spite 
 of all things ; but to be a weak woman, and 
 good with the goodness invented for her by 
 men who will have none of it themselves ; 
 no, thank you. It is a sad mistake to take 
 things seriously, especially for women (which 
 sounds like a quotation from Byron, and is 
 almost), but it is a mistake that shall not be 
 mine. Let us keep to the surface of all 
 things, to the to-day in which we live, for- 
 getting the yesterdays, not dreaming of to- 
 morrows. The froth of the waves, the green 
 meadows, and the happy folk walking across 
 them laughing; the whole world as it faces 
 the sky : beneath are only the deep waters, 
 the black earth, the people sorrowing in 
 their houses, the dead sleeping in their 
 graves. What have we who would laugh 
 in common with these ? Nothing. 
 
 Dear, your letters have grown too critical, 
 too intellectually admiring. You said in one 
 of them last week that you reverenced me 
 for my goodness. I do not want reverence ; 
 it goes to passion's funeral. And I do not 
 want to be good either, for that means a 
 person knowing all her own possibilities and 
 limits. It is only of the base and mean 
 things that one should know one's self utter- 
 
4 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 ly incapable ; for the rest it is better to give 
 one's nature its fling, and let it make a walk 
 for itself, good or bad, as its strength goes. 
 Good ! Oh, but I am glad to be far from 
 that goal. No woman who is absolutely 
 and entirely good, in the ordinary sense of 
 the word, gets a man's most fervent, pas- 
 sionate love, the love beside which all other 
 feelings pale. A wear-and-tear affection, 
 perhaps, tideless and dull, may be her por- 
 tion, but it is not for good women that men 
 have fought battles, given their lives, and 
 staked their souls. To be good, to know 
 beforehand that, under any given circum- 
 stances, one would do the right thing, would 
 stalk along the higher path of moral recti- 
 tude, forever remembering and caring above 
 all things for one's own superiority, while 
 the rest of the world might suffer what it 
 would ; it appals me to think of it. Besides, 
 how deadly dull to herself must the good 
 woman be, how limited her imagination, 
 how sober her horizon ; she knows her own 
 future so well there is little wonder that she 
 grows dowdy, living it. To feel that there 
 is no unexpectedness in her nature, nothing 
 over which to hold a rein, to know that no 
 moment can come when, forgetting all else, 
 she will give herself up to the whirlwind 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 5 
 
 that may overtake her in a dozen forms, 
 and then, if need be, pay the price without 
 flinching and without tears. For tears and 
 repentance and reformations are all the ac- 
 companiments of goodness that once in its 
 weakness is overcome. How I loathe them 
 and the expiation with which some women 
 would bleach their souls. Did you ever stop 
 to think what expiation means ? Probably 
 some monkish- minded ancestor who was 
 addicted to scourging himself putting his 
 ghostly finger across one's brain, and so 
 waving his torturing lash down through the 
 ages. Give me, then, the strength to raise 
 my head and say, " Yes, it was I, and I will 
 pay the price cheerfully, for the joy of re- 
 membering will sustain me to the end, and 
 repentance I have none." 
 
 I wonder if husbands are so often un- 
 faithful because their wives are good? I 
 think so. They cannot stand the dreary mo- 
 notonies and certainties. They give them af- 
 fection and reverence and go to the women 
 who are less good, and love them. I won- 
 der if the wholly good men are the best 
 loved ? Not they. They, too, like the good 
 women, are treated to the even way of dull 
 affection. The bravest men, the strongest, 
 the most capable to do great deeds when 
 
6 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 the chance comes, and of waiting for the 
 chances as best they can : they are the best 
 loved. It is, in fact, the mystery that lies 
 in people as in fate that is the fascination 
 the wondering, the toss-up whether it will 
 be good or bad to us or to others. For 
 this makes life keen living and love a des- 
 perate joy. It is so with the whole of hu- 
 manity. Say what we will for goodness 
 and in the abstract it is the soul's desire 
 of most of us the world would be a dull 
 place to live in if all the wickedness were 
 stamped out ; too dull to satisfy mortal 
 men and women. We may owe our solid 
 happiness to the good, but we owe life's 
 color and variety and excitement to the 
 wicked : never let us underrate them. Are 
 you shocked, cher ami? But in these latter 
 days we have taken to writing sermons to 
 each other. Mine, at least, has the advan- 
 tage of being genuine. If it does not please 
 you I cannot help it. I would not have you 
 even always pleased, for it would bore me 
 sadly. You asked me once (do you remem- 
 ber, the long grass was dipping in the river, 
 and I watched it while you spoke), " if I 
 would always be the same ?" I answered, 
 Yes untruthfully enough, but I could not 
 help it. Would I have you always the same? 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 7 
 
 I ask myself, as I sit here ; and the answer 
 comes to my lips quickly, Not I. Hot and 
 cold, a stir to one's pulse, a chill to one's 
 heart, a formal word that makes one's lips 
 close as though ice had frozen them, a whis- 
 per that sets one's blood tingling with sud- 
 den joy. All this is life and love, not vege- 
 tation and affection. 
 
 Don't think I do not long after good 
 things. Oh, my dear, do we not all long 
 after them, and so sanctify our souls, that 
 are not able to do more ? It is so easy to 
 sit at the base of a tower and wish we stood 
 on the top ; it is another thing to climb it 
 little step by little step. If one could be 
 hauled up in some strange dangerous fash- 
 ion it would be worth doing, though one 
 risked one's neck by the way. So if by a 
 few great deeds one could reach the heights, 
 who that has any fire in his soul would not 
 do them, though they crushed the life out 
 of him for a time nay, though he died by 
 the way ? But the unvarying goodness of 
 daily life, one day as like another as one 
 step is like another ; and the getting to the 
 top of one's moral plateau at last for what ? 
 For some abstract praise, some measured 
 admiration, while those one loved best felt 
 most one's far-offness from themselves. It 
 
8 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 would be like the chilly tower-top, standing 
 there alone, the wind sweeping past, the 
 world below going merrily by unheeding. 
 Is it worth it ? No. Preach no more of 
 goodness to me ; and as for reverence, keep 
 it for the saints. 
 
 You have provoked all this from me with 
 your dreary, unsatisfying letter, and your 
 half-finished sentence, " And in the future " 
 Why did you stop? Did you fear to 
 go on ? Well, and in the future ? Do you 
 think any woman will love you as I have 
 loved you ; will forget you as completely as 
 I will forget if I choose ; will scorn you as 
 well if it comes to it ; will be as constant or 
 as fickle, as passionate or as cold ? It may 
 be ; but I think not, for my strange heart is 
 given to the Fates to wring with what agony 
 they will, or to fill to the brim with joy, and 
 out of either I can give lavishly. 
 
 Do you understand me ? I doubt it. I 
 stand here by the gate of many things, won- 
 dering if the latch shall be left up or down 
 forever. For when the summer-day is done 
 the twilight comes, sweet enough for the 
 dawdlers who would sit and dream alone, 
 but not for me with the wild blood dancing 
 through my veins. Draw down the blinds, 
 say I, and bring the flaring lights; the 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 9 
 
 guests of the day may go, but the guests of 
 the night will come ready to begin what 
 perhaps you are ready to end. In the be- 
 ginning are life and promise and love ; but 
 in the end ? In the end one lies down to 
 die and forget. Good-bye. 
 
II 
 
 HE. AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE 
 
 |Y DEAREST GIRL, You 
 know I never comprehend your 
 letters ; but perhaps that is 
 
 one reason wnv I like tnem - 
 I never altogether comprehend 
 you, which is also perhaps the reason why 
 I love you, for I do, upon my soul I do, 
 in spite of the nonsense you talk about 
 affection and vegetation and wickedness, 
 and the rest of it. I sometimes feel as 
 if you had taken me for some one else 
 when I read your letters some one you had 
 set up and thought to be me. It's odd, 
 but I used to have the same sort of feeling 
 in the summer, when you seemed to see 
 from one direction and I from another. I 
 don't want you to make that kind of mis- 
 take, dearest; it would be a bad lookout 
 for me if you did. Now, let us speak plainly, 
 have things out, and be done with it ; then 
 it will be plain sailing, and we shall both be 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE II 
 
 better for it better, anyhow, than if we 
 went on with fine words and vague phrases 
 for a twelvemonth. 
 
 If my letters have been cold lately, or 
 seemed so, it has not been that I have not 
 cared for you, or don't, as much as during 
 all those jolly days by the river, when we 
 were too lazy to talk even about ourselves. 
 But you know one can't be always at high 
 pressure; besides, I am getting on, and 
 though one may still be able to talk non 
 sense occasionally, and in the country, yet 
 after the turn of five-and-thirty a man isn't 
 so ready to go on with it when he is once 
 more back in town, among people, and 
 planning his life, as I am. This doesn't 
 make me less sincere, mind ; I like you 
 better than any one else, I expect, but I am 
 a good deal taken up with other matters. 
 I am anxious about Carpeth. K - is 
 certain that I have a good chance of getting 
 in, and I seriously contemplate standing. Of 
 course, as you already know, I don't care a 
 straw about politics, and should never at- 
 tempt to talk; still, getting into Parliament 
 is a respectable sort of thing to try for un- 
 less you are a Radical ; gives you influence 
 in the county, and so on. Then I am 
 bothered about those beggars and their 
 
12 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 farms. I remember telling you that they 
 wanted their rents lowered, rather unfairly, 
 I think. Then my mother is always at me 
 to settle down before she dies, she says, 
 having a fancy that that won't be long, 
 though I hope with all my heart it will ; and 
 she wants me to marry my cousin Nell. I 
 like Nell well enough, and no doubt we 
 should jog along comfortably together, but 
 I am much fonder of you, though if you 
 throw me over I dare say I shall try my 
 chance with Nell. So you see there's been 
 some excuse for pre-occupation in my letters. 
 
 In spite of what you say I do reverence 
 you for your goodness. Look what a brick 
 you were to your brother and his wife last 
 year, and I know if you marry me that you 
 will make me, as you would any man you 
 loved, a good and true wife. Be the sensible 
 girl I have always thought you, and write 
 and say it is all right, and I will tell the 
 mater at once, and let us get married as soon 
 as Carpeth is settled. Don't think I have 
 ceased to care for you because I don't write 
 you sentimental letters, or see you twice a 
 day, as I did at Wargrave, where there was 
 nothing to do but to loaf round and hang 
 about the river till dinner-time. 
 
 While I think of it, what I meant by " and 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 13 
 
 in the future," was just in effect what I have 
 said here, only somehow I could not get it 
 to the tip of my pen then as I do now. Of 
 course we went on at a rapid rate this sum- 
 mer, but you see we were thrown a good 
 deal on each other, and there's always some- 
 thing enticing in the river, and the willow- 
 weed, and the towing-path, and all the rest 
 of it. I am really awfully fond of you, too, 
 and when a man is alone with a woman he 
 likes, and nothing particular besides on his 
 mind, he would be a duffer if he didn't run 
 on a bit. Still, I am not a very romantic 
 sort ; when I was two-and-twenty I had rath- 
 er a quencher with that girl I told you of 
 once ; she cut up rough after playing the 
 fool with me to the top of my bent, and that 
 has done its work. Besides, talk as you will 
 about affection, it's the best thing to get 
 married on ; blazing passion fizzles out pret- 
 ty soon and leaves precious little behind. 
 It says a good deal for the strength and gen- 
 uineness of my feeling for you that, after the 
 speed of last summer, I can still in the cool 
 of the autumn declare, as I do, that I am 
 sincerely fond of you. 
 
 Of course I know that if I am matter-of- 
 fact you are the reverse, but if you won't be 
 angry at my saying so, I think that comes 
 
14 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 of the life you lead. Living with a brother 
 and sister-in-law, and no settled place in the 
 house or home of your own, shutting yourself 
 up with books, or stealing off to some quiet 
 spot to read them, and going out all night 
 when you are in town and being told, no mat- 
 ter where you are, by half a dozen fellows 
 that they are in love with you; that can't be a 
 healthy sort of life for any woman. You will 
 lead a far better and more natural one if 
 you settle down with me, as I hope you will. 
 Now, write me a long letter and tell me 
 all that is in your heart and mind about this. 
 Let me know just what you think, for I could 
 never for the life of me quite make out what 
 you were driving at when we were together. 
 But, above all, tell me that you love me, as 
 you did in the summer when you put your 
 head down on my arm and yet would never 
 say the plain, honest " Yes " I tried to ex- 
 tract from you. Then I will somehow make 
 time to run down on Saturday and stay till 
 Monday, as I long to do. Good-night, my 
 dear one. Ever yours. 
 
 P.S. Let me hear by return if you can, 
 for I have a good deal of anxiety one way 
 and another, and shall be glad to get this 
 off my mind. 
 
Ill 
 
 SHE. SOME VIEWS ON MARRIAGE 
 
 ET it off your mind by all means. 
 I would not marry you for the 
 world. Marry your cousin Nell, 
 with whom you will jog along 
 well enough ; go in for Carpeth ; 
 raise or lower your tenants' rents, and settle 
 down to your uneventful life without me. It 
 would drive me mad. There is enough of 
 nothing in your heart or soul to satisfy me. 
 I like you ; I have loved you perhaps I do 
 still ; but marry you no ; for I should surely 
 run away, and before a year was over, if it 
 were only to hide in a dim corner with amused 
 eyes to watch your perplexity. I see how 
 good you are, manly and straightforward 
 all that and more ; but to settle down with 
 you to know the end of my days almost as 
 well as the beginning; to live through the 
 long, dull, respectable years with you no, 
 thank you. You must marry your cousin 
 
l6 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 Nell ; and I, if I marry at all, will marry a 
 man whose future is not unrolled, like yours, 
 before my eyes some one who has it in him 
 to leave the world richer than he found it, 
 who will teach it, or beautify it, or make it 
 in some way better because he has been. 
 For men who do this are the masters of the 
 world, and men like you, rich or fairly rich, 
 good, plodding, and painstaking, are their 
 servants. They enjoy your acres, which you 
 keep trim for them ; your houses, the doors 
 of which open wide to receive them; and 
 they pay you wages in the shape of benefits 
 you get from their genius. Yes, you will 
 marry your cousin Nell, go into Parliament, 
 helping your country with vote or presence 
 for that is how, as you indicate, your po- 
 litical capacity will be bounded ; you will en- 
 joy your easy-going life, and die when your 
 turn conies. You will do no work that oth- 
 ers could not do equally well, and never fret 
 or fire your soul with more than a little anx- 
 iety, a little fatigue or vexation ; and even 
 these will calm down or be forgotten with 
 your first spoonful of soup at dinner your 
 dull, well-mannered dinner of five courses, 
 with the salad and the savory left out. Oh, 
 my dear, whom I loved through all the long, 
 still days of this past summer, what a revela- 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE I/ 
 
 tion your letters have been to me. I should 
 go mad if I married you. No ; if I marry at 
 all, it must be some one who works works 
 truly, not for himself and for his own posi- 
 tion or respectability's sake, but for the 
 work's sake and the world's sake ; a man 
 who is part of the great machinery that 
 models the future ages ; not a mere idler by 
 its wheels, hanging about, amusing himself 
 for his day, dying when his turn comes, and 
 leaving no trace behind. There are crowds 
 of these, well enough in their way, with their 
 cheery voices and pleasant faces ; let other 
 women marry them. The world would be a 
 terrible place if it were made up entirely of 
 the minority towards which my soul leans. 
 There would be all to work, but none to 
 work for; all to give, and none to receive. 
 Yes, the world is well for the like of you, 
 for the majority that takes life easily, bat- 
 tling a little for itself and its own, leaving 
 the workers to build up the world ; but it 
 is to these last that my heart goes out. A 
 soldier who has fought for his own land, and 
 so helped its people ; a thinker who, unseen 
 himself, has swayed vast numbers ; a law- 
 giver who has devised the codes by which 
 coming races may guide themselves ; a trav- 
 eller who makes the first lonely track into the 
 
1 8 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 unknown land, and then comes back to direct 
 the road-makers how to work on towards the 
 great city that, but for him, would have been 
 unsuspected any one of these holds in his 
 hand the seed of immortality. 
 
 But it is not only the leaders who have 
 it. The poet who writes, and the singer who 
 sings, the words the soldiers hear as they 
 march by; the beggar who sits starving in 
 his garret, all the while creating that for 
 which the whole world will rejoice, though he 
 dies or goes into the crowd not knowing, 
 letting others get the reward of his work; 
 the martyr who keeps his lips shut and will 
 not cry out lest others should lose heart; all 
 these, too these are the masters who prove 
 that greatness is a thing that must be put 
 outside one's self to live. With one of these 
 there would be life with its promises and 
 possibilities, a chance to help, though it were 
 only by serving the worker as his servant. 
 Bitter grief, keen disappointment, throbbing 
 pain might come; what then ? It is for their 
 alternatives one makes, and what chance of 
 them would there be along your monotonous 
 way ? And with all my longings and ambi- 
 tions, and all that they would mean, would 
 the pleasant friendships that some men give 
 their wives, that you in fact offer me, suffice ? 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 19 
 
 And the realities of your life, would they sat- 
 isfy me ? Not quite. I should go away. I 
 remember being told of a woman who said 
 she would rather have the one true passion- 
 ate devotion of the worst man that ever lived, 
 than all the affection and respect and re- 
 gard but these only that the best could 
 give. I did not understand her then. I do 
 now. For the first has in him the fire that 
 may any day leap upward ; but the other has 
 only an even light by which .one would see 
 to everlastingly measure and excuse him. 
 Beside the first one might walk through hell 
 unheeding its flames; beside the last heaven 
 itself would be monotonous. This is what 1 
 meant in scoffing at goodness ; what I mean 
 now in turning, almost with a shudder, from 
 the idea of being your wife, even though I 
 still have some lingering love for you. The 
 boundaries of goodness are known well 
 enough, but in the bare possibilities of their 
 being broken down there is a strange uncer- 
 tain vista that fascinates me. It is the un- 
 known quantities, the mysteries, that set one 
 thinking and make one eager. Is not the 
 world itself round, so that we see but a little 
 way ahead ? How then can you expect me 
 to accept my portion of it so flattened and 
 laid out before me that I can almost see the 
 
20 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 whiteness of my own tombstone at the other 
 end ? No, let us end it all. Go to your life ; 
 leave me to mine. 
 
 Marriage between us is not possible. A 
 service might be read over us, one roof might 
 cover us, one name identify us , but this 
 would not be marriage only a binding to- 
 gether by a ceremony made for those not 
 strong enough to stand by each other with- 
 out it, which, in the eyes of the outer world, 
 would make us man and wife, yet in our own 
 hearts leave us miles apart. The most 
 dreamy of relationships might be marriage 
 rather than this ; nay, I can imagine it ex- 
 isting between two people who meet but 
 half a dozen times in their lives, who nev- 
 er touch hands, who but dimly remember 
 each other's faces, and yet whose hearts and 
 souls steal out in the silence towards each 
 other and meet in some strange fashion not 
 known to ordinary men and women an ach- 
 ing, almost passionate love, that has nothing 
 physical in it, and that seeks no human sym- 
 bol for expression save that which puts it- 
 self forth in their work. Even this would 
 satisfy me better than what you offer me, in 
 which there would be the ever longing for 
 more than you could even comprehend. And 
 yet it would not satisfy me. I am not ideal- 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 21 
 
 1st enough, nor poet neither. I am a woman, 
 and alive to my finger ends ; and, if I am 
 loved at all, would be loved wholly and alto- 
 gether, as a man who is alive, too, and part 
 of the living world, knows how to love. I 
 want a face that satisfies me to look at, a 
 voice to hear, a hand to grip, a firm and even 
 footstep to listen to unconsciously as an ac- 
 companiment to our talk while we go through 
 the streets together. I cannot help caring 
 for these things, for I am human, and have 
 the longings of human womanhood. But 
 there are other longings, too longings that 
 lift the human ones up, and give them the 
 idealism that is necessary to one's soul's 
 salvation ; and these last hang on the first : 
 they are all inseparable. 
 
 I have written on, never once considering 
 how it may hurt you. It is better, perhaps, 
 if I do hurt you, for some wounds must be 
 seared in order that they may be healed. 
 Insulting, heartless, cruel, some dolts who 
 saw this letter might call me; but I am none 
 of these. I have spoken out fearlessly all 
 that was in my heart and mind, as you wished 
 me to do. I might have been more gentle, 
 have used words less plain, and so nourished 
 my own vanity on your regrets at losing me. 
 And heartless ? no. If I were, I should be 
 
22 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 content to take ease and comfort and the 
 world's goods, all of which you would give 
 me for my portion, and concern myself about 
 little else ; should be content with the simple 
 affection you offer me instead of pushing it 
 away, because my hungry heart needs more. 
 We had our summer day, dear, and it was 
 good to live through ; but now, go to your 
 cousin Nell, contest Carpeth, see to your 
 tenants, and good-bye. Yes, good-bye, dear 
 Englishman ; only our own land could have 
 produced you ; and in a measure I am proud 
 of you, as I am of all its other goodly prod- 
 ucts. But for warmth and sunshine one 
 goes to other lands than ours; for love and 
 happiness I, at least, must go to other heart 
 than yours. Better for you that it is so, for 
 I should have tried you sorely. 
 
IV 
 
 HE. EXPOSTULATING 
 
 REALLY don't know how to 
 answer your letter, for of course 
 I am going to answer it; it's 
 odder than ever, more than 
 ever like you, my darling. You 
 are not very polite, are you? But perhaps 
 I am not either, for the matter of that. 
 For the life of me I can't understand you, 
 can't make out what you are driving at, 
 and I am not sure that you know your- 
 self. You say that you love me ; then why 
 on earth can't you be content to marry 
 me ? I love you, I am very fond of you, 
 though I won't pretend that I can go at 
 the rate you seem to desire ; but, as I 
 said in my last letter, passion soon fizzles 
 out. Romance is all very well when you 
 are young, but middle- age is a time that 
 most of us come to, and then what's to be- 
 come of it? As for life with me being so 
 
24 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 dull, we can't be always going in for excite- 
 ment ; but you would get enough of it, I 
 expect, and you could make yourself prom- 
 inent in lots of ways if you wished to do 
 so. I would do anything in reason to make 
 you happy, or to please you as far as I 
 could. If you want change and movement 
 and new experiences, we might go about a 
 good bit. I remember your saying in the 
 summer-time that you would like to travel. 
 We might go and look up some scenery in 
 Italy or Switzerland, or if you wanted any- 
 thing more extensive take a run over to 
 America, though I don't expect you would 
 find that very exhilarating, and I never 
 cared for republics myself. Even Paris is 
 spoilt by going in for democracy and that 
 sort of thing. 
 
 I think you are vexed with me because I 
 told you frankly that if you would not have 
 me I should try my luck with Nell. But 
 you can't expect me to keep single because 
 you don't think me lively enough to marry 
 yourself. I am getting on, thirty-six next 
 January, quite time that I settled down ; I 
 feel that I ought to do so ; besides, if I wait 
 too long no one will have me. Of course it 
 is easy enough to talk as you do, but take 
 my word for it, your feelings are not what is 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 25 
 
 wanted for daily life. They are all very 
 well in the books you have got yourself into 
 the habit of reading, but they won't work 
 outside the covers in which you find them. 
 I don't believe in Darwin, as you know not 
 that I ever read much of him, I confess, but 
 I made out what he was up to pretty well 
 and I never read but one of Zola's novels ; 
 and as that was a translation, I take it for 
 granted the color was a good deal toned 
 down, but it was quite sufficient to convince 
 me that women did well not to read him at 
 all. I say this because bits in your letter 
 sound like the talk one hears among the 
 prigs whom it is the correct thing to meet 
 at some houses nowadays, or the articles 
 one sees in the heavy reviews. Not that I 
 ever talk much to the first or read the last 
 know better than that, my darling. I 
 prefer being on the river with you. But 
 one can't help knowing what's in the air, 
 and it all somehow harks back to Darwin 
 and Zola, two schools, or whatever you call 
 them, that seem to be running neck and 
 neck just now among the people who go in 
 for thinking. But they come to no good, 
 dearest; they have only made you want 
 some artificial kind of career. Now, it's 
 my opinion that a woman ought to find the 
 
26 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 life of her home and the companionship of 
 her husband, and later on of her children, 
 sufficient, and that's what most sensible men 
 think, too. Centent yourself with them, my 
 clear one, and gives yourself to me with a 
 light heart. You shall indulge in as many 
 fancies as you please, and have as much 
 amusement as I* can reasonably give you, 
 and we will do a whole lot of going about 
 from first to last if you like. 
 
 Of course I have got some acres and 
 must look after them, if it is only to keep 
 them trim, as you say, for the beggars you 
 call my masters ; and as for fighting, or in- 
 venting things, or writing books, none of 
 these is in my line, and I am glad of it. A 
 nice comfortable life, enough money, and a 
 good digestion have fallen to my share, and 
 I am quite content with it; if you fall to 
 my share, too, I shall have nothing else to 
 wish for, after I have secured Carpeth. 
 
 I cannot think what has changed you all 
 of a sudden, for we got on so well in the 
 summer, and we managed to get awfully 
 fond of each other, or I did of you, and you 
 at any rate were happy enough with me. 
 Be happy again, my darling ; as I said in 
 my last letter I say again in this : I love you 
 better than any one else, though I own I 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 27 
 
 shall try and win Nell if you throw me over. 
 But don't, I implore you, just for the sake 
 of all that you have lately taken to dream 
 about, give away realities. Life isn't a thing 
 that comes to us more than once in this 
 world, anyhow or that lasts too long, and 
 it's a pity not to make the best of it ; I 
 don't think that you would make the worst 
 of it by giving yourself to me. Now write 
 me another of your queer letters if you like, 
 and say not only that you love me, but that 
 you'll marry me. You can't think how hap- 
 py you would make me, and I won't believe 
 you were playing fast and loose with me all 
 the summer ; if you were not, why it's all 
 right, and let us get married soon. We 
 would move about as much as you pleased 
 till I was obliged to be back in England 
 again, and I feel sure that that is what you 
 want to ease off some of your excitement 
 and restlessness, and make you content with 
 ordinary life again. Good-night, clearest ; 
 write at once and let me know precisely 
 what your views are now. Affectionately 
 yours. 
 
SHE. EXPLAINING FURTHER, AND CONCERN- 
 ING PASSION 
 
 'O, I cannot write as you de- 
 sire. We are so utterly differ- 
 ent. A month ago I did not 
 see it ; now I do, for your let- 
 ters have made all things clear. 
 By the river we felt the same breeze, the 
 same sunshine ; we thought they had the 
 same effect upon us, that in all things we 
 felt alike. The days we spent together 
 were drowsy summer ones, and you were 
 a dream to me ; perhaps I was one to 
 you. We did not talk much, not enough 
 to find each other out, and it is to that 
 we owe our memories. I am glad to have 
 mine ; I was so happy, and I loved you, 
 remember, which sanctifies them, so that I 
 am not ashamed because of the long hours 
 in which I was wholly content. 
 
 But life is not spent by the river-side, or 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 29 
 
 in a dream. The summer is over, we are 
 awake, and our story is finished. To at- 
 tempt to live our lives together would be 
 madness. You must marry your cousin 
 Nell. She will be a better wife to you than 
 I could be at my best. She probably be- 
 longs to the type you like, and that the ma- 
 jority of men like, when they want to marry 
 and settle down the wife and home and 
 motherhood type that nineteen centuries of 
 Christianity have taught us, and rightly, to 
 admire. But I do not belong to it, and 
 cannot. 
 
 I could hardly bear to read your offers 
 of travel. It was as though you were try- 
 ing to bribe me with them, knowing that of 
 love there was not enough. How dreary 
 those journeys would be ! Worse even than 
 the long evenings when we looked at each 
 other across the dinner-table, and then from 
 either side the fireplace, glancing now and 
 again at the clock, thinking how slowly it 
 went towards the point at which we might 
 rise, and with dull satisfaction feel that the 
 day was over. I can imagine our setting 
 out ; I can see us on our way, you with your 
 time-table and guide-book, your Gladstone 
 bag and portmanteaus, easy-going and good- 
 tempered, anxious about your food and de- 
 
30 A MODERN, CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 liberating as to the hotels, always spending 
 your money with an easy hand, yet seeing 
 that proper attention was paid you. I can 
 almost hear what you say as I walk beside 
 you, my Englishman in tweeds, along the 
 railway platforms ; and I can see myself, 
 too, a little tired and disagreeably inclined 
 towards other people, snapping at my maid 
 for being forgetful, yet meekly listening to 
 your instructions. How we should drag 
 through the cities, looking at pictures and 
 pretending that we cared about them, or 
 yawn at table d'hbtes, or go off to see bits of 
 scenery because other people went, but se- 
 cretly feeling bored by them as by most 
 things ; I getting more and more tired, and 
 you reflecting that after all there was no 
 place like one's own home. I could not en- 
 dure it. Yet I could tramp gayly in tatters 
 across great plains or over the mountain- 
 tops with a beggar who was a poet, a me- 
 chanic who was a genius, a dreamer who 
 talked of a waking time to come. I could 
 go merrily enough through the cities though 
 we had never a coin between us to pay for 
 a sheltering roof. We would rest beyond 
 the gates, crouching under a hedge to sleep, 
 and sitting by a lonely way-side cook our 
 scanty food with the help of the little tin 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 31 
 
 canteen we carried with us. I should think 
 of the time when the city we had left would 
 ring with my hero's name, of how he would 
 lead his soldiers through it, or teach those 
 who wanted to learn, or help those who suf- 
 fered now and must wait till he was ready. 
 "They do not know his name yet," I should 
 say to myself ; " they did not even look up 
 at his face as we passed by, but they will, 
 they shall, for some day the whole wide 
 world will be but the setting for his work." 
 All nonsense and exaggeration, you will say. 
 Yes, dear ; it is, and I know it. But over a 
 bridge built of dreams and exaggerations 
 Love often goes blindfold towards the reali- 
 ties it may never reach itself, leaving a track 
 that the stronger may follow, and would not 
 have thought out for themselves. To the 
 lovers and the dreamers and enthusiasts it 
 is sometimes given to move the world with 
 their shoulders ; the plodders do it stone by 
 stone while the ages admire their patience. 
 The last are like school -boys learning, 
 but to the first the heavens and hells have 
 whispered. 
 
 Passion soon fizzles out, you say, and you 
 think only of the passion of a wicked French 
 novel. There is another type of man, un- 
 like enough to your healthy, manly self, 
 
32 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 who does this the man who is above all 
 things intellectual, who has much book- 
 knowledge, and has read and remembered 
 and stored his mind with the work of other 
 men, so that his talk and writings are full 
 of literary allusion. Through his mind 
 there niters constantly a stream of other 
 men's thoughts ; if that gave out his mind 
 would be empty, for he creates nothing. 
 His mission he takes to be to tinker at 
 other men's work and appraise it, and he 
 does, seeing it usually by a borrowed light. 
 Learned and lukewarm, cold and cynical 
 towards most things that have not been 
 dust these hundred years, he has no more 
 passion in him than he has genius. An 
 odd, incomplete creature, a modern refine- 
 mentfor he would often be a little fash- 
 ionable in these latter days, and is to be met 
 with at dinner- tables and country houses, 
 and traced in our literary journals I some- 
 times wonder where the good of him comes 
 in, for he gives the world nothing that is his 
 own, and that which he finds ready to hand 
 is no better for his commenting and gar- 
 nishing, but rather the reverse. It is him, 
 I think, on whom your mind is running when 
 you talk of Zola and Darwin, but he has 
 nothing in common with either; and you 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 33 
 
 and he have nothing in common which is 
 all to the good of you except that both of 
 you think that passion is usually dashed 
 with wickedness, and has but one meaning 
 attached to it. The very word you consid- 
 er an undesirable one to use, especially be- 
 fore women or in polite society. You are 
 not quite sure that it is proper. 
 
 But the passion I mean, and would have 
 in my lover's heart, was in Joan's when she 
 rode into Rheims to crown her king. If it 
 had but lasted a little longer it would have 
 deadened the outward flames at her burn- 
 ing, and her shrieks would not have echoed 
 in our ears through all the centuries. It 
 was in Napoleon's heart when he strode on 
 before his army and thought the whole 
 world would be his. It was in Samuel 
 Plimsoll's heart when he stepped forth and 
 by a passionate moment won his cause. A 
 score of men along the benches might have 
 lulled each other with their dull platitudes 
 for a score of years without doing what that 
 one moment's fire did. It is in the novice's 
 heart when she hears the great gate clang 
 behind her, and, raising her clasped hands, 
 thinks that she will surely one day scale 
 the heights of heaven and see her Saviour's 
 face. Read "St. Agnes' Eve" Tenny- 
 
34- A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 son's, not Keats's, I mean and you will 
 understand. My heart has stirred to it till 
 I could have thrown the book aside, and, 
 walking through the frosty snow to the con- 
 vent, have besought them to let me in for 
 one moment to stand beside the white- 
 veiled figure, and see the light as it never is 
 seen by the sayers of prayers and singers 
 of hymns in the stifling churches of the 
 world. But this was only a passing feeling, 
 a power of the poet's, that proves him and 
 not one's self. And it is not the whole of 
 what I mean, for I want all that is in the 
 novice's heart, but more added on. I do 
 not want your reverence, I told you, and 
 that is true, and I do not want to be good, 
 absolutely good, for that means being bound 
 by finite possibilities, and it is the infinite in 
 all things, good and evil, that has the eternal 
 power. And I would like all feelings in my 
 lover's heart to have their fling, while we, 
 whom the issue most concerned, breathless- 
 ly awaited the result, leaning to this side or 
 to that according to our strength, or that 
 which was brought to bear on it. For men 
 and women are not meant to kill their 
 strongest feelings and impulses, but only to 
 understand them, to know when to govern 
 or to let themselves be governed. To this 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 35 
 
 last knowledge the world owes the greatest 
 deeds that men have done. In passion 
 there is fire, and does not fire purify as 
 well as burn ? The prairie flames sweep all 
 growths before them as they make unflinch- 
 ingly towards their goal, and the goal of 
 passionate love at its highest is achievement 
 that, but for its sake, would never have been 
 gained. It is the achievement I long for, 
 not for myself, but for my best-loved; I 
 would go away if he willed it, when he 
 needed me no more, and be remembered 
 nowhere save in his heart. I should know 
 the fire there. Did not Prometheus filch 
 it from heaven ? Perhaps it would mount 
 higher and higher on good work done till 
 it touched the heavens again. 
 
 But all this you think mere craving for 
 excitement, a lack of repose, an aching to 
 be prominent. It is none of these. Still, in 
 my heart there is nevertheless a leaning for- 
 ward towards the future not my own fut- 
 ure, but the whole world's. Nonsense, you 
 will say ; what have I to do with that ? We 
 have all to do with it; we cannot separate 
 ourselves off from it, for this present self- 
 consciousness that we call life is not the 
 whole of us unless we choose. There is one 
 thing ours from the time we enter the world, 
 
36 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 if we did but know it it is part of life's 
 mystery that we should so seldom know it 
 the power to fashion our own immortali- 
 ty, not in our own bodies, but in the things 
 we do. A sort of choice or chance which 
 is it? seems to be ours, to seek the stars 
 or tread the depths. Have we not come 
 out of the past leaving strange histories we 
 cannot even remember behind us ? Here 
 in our present day we choose, so it is given 
 to me to feel, whether we will let the poten- 
 tialities stamp us out, or whether, having in 
 some shape paid the world for its light and 
 shelter, its love and joy, though its alterna- 
 tives were pain and woe, we go on into the 
 future ages stronger for that with which we 
 have nourished our souls. Oh, my dear, it 
 is not excitement that I want. I believe I 
 could wait long years to meet a single day, 
 and having known it live long years again 
 remembering, though never a ripple stirred 
 Time's surface before or after. But I could 
 not be content with your life and its lack of 
 possibilities. You would not ask me to go 
 to you hungry if you had no food, shivering 
 if you had no shelter ? Yet this would be 
 little beside the starvation you offer me. 
 Why should I give up to you all my chances, 
 all my ambitions, my hopes and longings, 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 37 
 
 the wild love and satisfying life that may be 
 mine nay, my pain and bitter woe, for I 
 would miss none and the work that will 
 surely some time come to my eager hands 
 and heart, for what? To please you now 
 for just a little space, till you awoke to re- 
 alize that life together was not what you 
 had imagined it would be, that something 
 was wrong, was missing, you could not tell 
 what ; while I, who had never slept, would 
 understand well enough all the time, and 
 some day, feeling the twitch of the demon's 
 finger on my arm and his whisper in my ear, 
 I should vanish, how or where I should 
 hardly know. For the marriage vow be- 
 tween us would not be one that bound my 
 soul, and my feet would be swift to follow 
 that whither it went. To hold fast by one's 
 soul as long as may be is the wisdom of the 
 gods. 
 
 It is no use saying more. Perhaps you 
 are right in thinking that I don't know what 
 I am driving at. Do any of us know 
 whither we are going? But that does not 
 prevent us from feeling driven ; and this I 
 know, that the Fates are driving me with a 
 strong hand away from you. We shall never 
 get nearer to each other though I write on 
 and you read on forever. Be content with 
 
38 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 the past. I have loved you. I do. But 
 not with the love that would let me be your 
 wife, content to spend my days by your side, 
 trying to make your days happy ; perhaps it 
 is some of your own good-for-wear-and-tear 
 affection that I give you back. I do not 
 know. There are many men like you, thank 
 God many good women to mate with them, 
 crowds of you both, happy enough to walk 
 along the beaten track with your fellows, 
 doing as they do, being as they are, a rest 
 and comfort for the like of me to take shel- 
 ter with sometimes, but not to abide with al- 
 ways. For your place is in your home, and 
 your duties are to fulfil the easy obligations 
 that keep it going ; but mine, in some strange 
 fashion, seems to be along the world's high- 
 way, staying now and again in its workshops, 
 though it be but to watch my masters, or to 
 be cuffed and made to stand aside till my 
 own turn comes. Perhaps I should be hap- 
 pier if I were like your cousin Nell, and 
 could be satisfied but I cannot Home 
 and its influences ; a husband who would 
 love me and to love back and help in an 
 easy routine like yours ; children with their 
 games and laughter, growing up to be the 
 world's good citizens sometimes it comes 
 into my heart to long for these, to ache for 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 39 
 
 the rest they would mean, the simple life and 
 further-reaching power than those who live 
 within its fences think, the safe and even 
 way that most women yearn to walk, looking 
 neither up at the heights nor down at the 
 depths, but only at the road before them, 
 content enough to tread it. But no. It is 
 so strange, this inner life, with the outward 
 one that hides it the brother and his deli- 
 cate wife, the visitors coming and going, the 
 dogs and the horses, the long rides and 
 walks, the pulls on the river or the dream- 
 ing beside it, the going to town or to coun- 
 try houses and the hurry of life there, the 
 men, " the half a dozen fellows " as you call 
 them, who talk of love, not knowing how 
 much or how little they mean. It all seems 
 a little way off from me, and yet I am here 
 in the midst. You ! Oh, but it has been all 
 a sad mistake ! I loved you, and thought 
 you understood. That you love me, or have 
 loved me, I know well enough ; but there is 
 a great space between us, a desert in which 
 we should have to walk if we tried to be to- 
 gether. No, again and forever, no. Your 
 life stands out clear before you, but some- 
 thing tells me that mine has other chapters 
 than this. There are some words that went 
 to my heart long ago. Oh, my dear Eng- 
 
40 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 lishman, perhaps you will say that they were 
 written by an improper poet. Zola and 
 Swinburne ! Marry your cousin Nell by all 
 means. I do but watch and wait like 
 those 
 
 "... who rest not ; who think long 
 Till they discern as from a hill 
 
 At the sun's hour of morning song, 
 Known of souls only, and those souls free, 
 
 The sacred spaces of the sea." 
 
 Some day, perhaps, I shall see and know 
 more, but then I shall not be here. Good- 
 bye, once again. 
 
VI 
 
 HIS MOST INTIMA TE FRIEND. CONSOLING 
 
 >EAR E , I don't think you 
 
 an awful cad for sending on 
 her letters, and I don't wonder 
 at your being puzzled by them. 
 Of course I will keep their con- 
 tents hidden in the innermost recesses of 
 my soul. They are not like ordinary love- 
 letters thank Heaven. For a nice little 
 note, with a monogram in the corner, a word 
 or two doubtfully spelled, and crammed full 
 of dears and darlings, is worth a stack of 
 these, which might have been written to her 
 great -gran dm other. 
 
 I take her in pretty well. She isn't alto- 
 gether a fool, you know ; but she is one of 
 the large-minded, great-souled people, long- 
 ing to suffer and distinguish themselves in 
 the cause of humanity and for the good of 
 the world, who are such a nuisance nowa- 
 days. She means well, but she would be 
 
42 A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 death to marry; there's no knowing what 
 she would be up to by the time she was 
 thirty. The amazing thing about it is that, 
 if I remember rightly, she is that pretty 
 woman who came over with the Fenwicks 
 to my aunt's place last Easter. She was 
 about six or seven and twenty, played lawn- 
 tennis better than any one else, flirted all 
 round, and finally drove herself away on a 
 high dog -cart with a learned, half-starved- 
 looking cuss, from whom she was probably 
 imbibing some of these notions. Nature 
 made a mistake in sorting out her physique ; 
 she ought to have been tall and lank, with 
 long arms, high cheek-bones, and a washed- 
 out complexion. All the same, in spite of 
 her good looks, I shudder to think of her as 
 mistress of Bingwell. The only good bit in 
 the whole of her letters is the polite allusion 
 to the savory and the salad. That looks 
 as if she could order a dinner; but she 
 would probably forget to do so half her time, 
 and I suppose she would scorn to eat it 
 though the material side of her doesn't seem 
 to be undeveloped. Before she had been 
 installed a month you can bet she would 
 have shocked the neighbors and fought with 
 the parson. And what a woman she would 
 be to stay with ! She would have an open 
 
A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE 43 
 
 contempt for her visitors all round, and lead 
 them a nice life, except the unwashed few 
 she calls the masters of the world. It is 
 really a fine name, if you come to think of 
 it ; somehow it reminds me of Spain, where 
 every beggar in tatters asking for cuartos is 
 a gentleman. No, old man, marry your 
 cousin Nell (in spite of her fancy for life's 
 alternatives, she doesn't seem to like that 
 one of yours), or any other sensible girl who 
 doesn't think she has a destiny or a mis- 
 sion, and thank your stars that this magnifi- 
 cent person would not have you. Ever 
 yours. 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY 
 WOMAN 
 
 i 
 
 MRS. ROBERT WILLIAMS TO MRS. POWER 
 
 DAFFODIL, BRECON, S. WALES, 
 Jamiary 26, 1884. 
 
 Y DEAR MARY, I am not 
 surprised at your having met 
 
 Madge Brooke at the C 's, 
 
 for she manages to go every- 
 where now. This, of course, is 
 entirely owing to her brother's position, 
 and to the fact that, instead of making her 
 an allowance and telling her to live alone, 
 as most brothers would, he lets her live 
 with him. The generosity shown by men 
 to their relations is often singularly irritat- 
 ing to lookers-on, and John Brooke fur- 
 
46 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 nishes an instance of this in his conduct 
 towards his sister. Some day, however, 
 her reign will end, for he is sure to mar- 
 ry, in spite of her efforts to keep him 
 single. I shall be curious to see what 
 Madge will do then. Two years ago he 
 was most attentive to my Isabel, and though, 
 of course, Isabel with her advantages did 
 not care about him, the wiles of Madge to 
 prevent a climax were quite ridiculous. 
 
 I understand your desire to know all 
 about the Brookes before encouraging an 
 intimacy. I am extremely cautious about 
 new people myself now that my girls are 
 grown up ; besides, I feel it due to our long 
 friendship to answer you frankly, as I should 
 like you to answer me. 
 
 Madge Brooke and her brother John are 
 the children of my husband's sister. They 
 were left, when their parents died, with an 
 income of one hundred and fifty pounds a 
 year. My own opinion was that this should 
 have been sufficient to prevent them from 
 becoming a burden to other people. Rob- 
 ert, who is always foolishly good-natured, 
 thought differently. The boy was sent to 
 an expensive school, spending his holidays 
 with us, and afterwards went to Oxford ; the 
 girl came here. This arrangement was ex- 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 47 
 
 ceedingly unpleasant to me, but I endeav- 
 ored to do my duty. Feeling that Madge 
 could not expect to stay here always, espe- 
 cially if anything happened to Robert, I did 
 not demur at her receiving a good education, 
 so that she might ultimately turn it to ac- 
 count. She grew up to be a tall, graceful 
 girl ; some people thought her handsome, 
 and she had a way when she chose of mak- 
 ing people like her. I never cared about 
 her myself or particularly admired her; I 
 prefer a simpler type. People always talked 
 about her a good deal and called her orig- 
 inal. I am very thankful that my girls are 
 not original. It is always doubtful how far 
 experiments, whether in human nature or in 
 anything else, will succeed ; at present, judg- 
 ing from the fact that Madge is seven-and- 
 twenty and unmarried, she is not a success. 
 Had she been an ordinary woman, an ordi- 
 nary man might have settled down with her. 
 Still, as I say, some people liked her. The 
 Wentworths at the Rectory, for instance, 
 were never tired of seeing her there ; she 
 and Nellie Wentworth were inseparable, tak- 
 ing long walks and reading the same books, 
 until they made themselves look absurd. I 
 did not interfere with them, for it took 
 Madge away from my children, with whom 
 
48 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 I did not care she should spend too much 
 time. This was not because of anything 
 bad in the girl, but because I feel strongly 
 that there should be a line drawn between 
 the children who are properly provided for 
 by their parents, and children left by their 
 parents to the charity of others. This may 
 sound harsh, but is not the Scripture meant 
 for our acceptance in the letter as well as in 
 the spirit? and we are expressly told that 
 God himself visits the sins of the parents 
 on the children, and not for one generation 
 only. We also should make it a point to 
 let children feel the shortcomings of their 
 parents, so that in future years they may 
 profit by the lesson. 
 
 When Madge was seventeen or eighteen 
 the Aliens at the Grange had on a visit to 
 them a young man called James Harrison. 
 The Aliens are those people we asked to 
 our picnic as an afterthought when you 
 were here, and who so much admired your 
 children. They are rich, but made their 
 money in business or by speculation, and 
 they and their visitors are altogether unin- 
 teresting. Mr. Harrison was a young man 
 in a merchant's office, well connected with 
 business people, and so likely to get on. 
 He fell in love with Madge, who, after be- 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 49 
 
 ing engaged to him for some months, sud- 
 denly jilted him ; why I never could divine, 
 unless it was as a sign of the originality 
 which is unfortunately her characteristic. 
 I was very angry indeed at her conduct, 
 and her brother having left Oxford, she 
 went to live with him in London, where 
 they were for some time very poor and 
 pretended to be very happy. Suddenly 
 John Brooke, who had got into a firm of 
 engineers, was sent to India about the con- 
 struction of a railway. He took Madge 
 with him, and there, and afterwards in Eng- 
 land, there was some sort of a flirtation or 
 engagement with Mr. Mark Cuthbertson, a 
 rather clever artist, who does pictures for 
 illustrated papers. He was at school and 
 afterwards at Oxford with John Brooke, but 
 was, I believe, very idle, and never did 
 much good. He stayed here once some 
 years ago, and spent most of his time with 
 Madge, who was then a little girl. In India, 
 and afterwards, John Brooke developed gen- 
 ius as an engineer and in everything else 
 he touched. He is really charming, and, as 
 you know, has carried all before him, both 
 in his profession and in society. Though 
 only thirty, I am told that he makes a large 
 income, and he goes everywhere, especially 
 
50 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 among intellectual people. He is, however, 
 very obstinate in some ways, and does very 
 odd things ; for instance, once when he was 
 obliged to be away for a few months he al- 
 lowed Madge to stay at a cottage some- 
 where in Berkshire, with no one to look 
 after her but a woman servant called Janet, 
 who was their mother's maid in the days 
 when she could afford one. I felt it my 
 duty to speak to him about it, but he grew 
 quite angry, and said he didn't care how 
 strange it looked, he coulcl trust Madge 
 (men are so foolish) ; and if one only took 
 care of realities, appearances righted them- 
 selves. So I left her to her own devices 
 and the evil tongue of slander. I did my 
 duty, and the rest was no business of mine. 
 But to show you how perverse she is, once, 
 when John was again abroad, and she alone 
 in London, I offered to go and stay with 
 her; but she declined, on the plea that 
 while her brother was away she wanted to 
 be quite alone. I have always disliked 
 those people who want to be so much alone 
 it is unnatural. Does not the disciple 
 say it of man, how much more, then, ought 
 we to say it of woman ? 
 
 I forgot to tell you that, three years ago, 
 Madge was engaged again to a Lieutenant 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN $1 
 
 Brian, a young man, the only son of a north 
 country parson who had married an heiress ; 
 so that, though he was only in the artillery 
 (she met him, I believe, at a Woolwich ball), 
 he would eventually have been very well off. 
 The engagement ended abruptly, I never 
 knew why, and the young man was killed 
 in some engagement in Egypt. I heard 
 lately that Sir Noel Franks was after her, 
 but that is probably nonsense, for she would, 
 no doubt, be glad enough to make so brill- 
 iant a match. Last year she and John 
 Brooke gave a dance, not at Bolton Row, 
 but at a larger house which they hired for 
 the occasion. They asked us, and I went, 
 thinking it might amuse Grace and Isabel ; 
 but I regretted it afterwards, for Madge 
 was just as attentive to the merest stranger 
 as she was to me. Lord Arthur Grey danced 
 once with Grace, and evidently admired her, 
 but Madge kept him in her pocket all the rest 
 of the evening she is that sort of woman. 
 
 The young man she jilted so heartlessly 
 called here a few months ago. He was a 
 widower, and wanted to know her address. 
 He had become rich, I think, or fairly so, 
 and I hoped he would, after all, marry 
 Madge, for he is a man with a strong will, 
 and might have a beneficial influence on 
 
52 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 
 
 her character ; but I have not heard of his 
 going to see her perhaps he thought better 
 of it. The Mrs. Hamilton you saw there 
 when you called is her old friend Nellie 
 Wentworth, who is a widow, for her husband 
 died of sunstroke in India, and left her with 
 one child. 
 
 Now I have told you all I can about 
 Madge. You will think that I have written 
 a very expansive letter ; but she is a person 
 who somehow irritates me, perhaps because 
 I feel that she is ungrateful for all the care 
 I bestowed on her while she was under my 
 roof, and for the interest I have since shown 
 in her welfare. But she is obstinate and 
 wilful, and likes to have her own way so 
 much, that even to give her advice is an un- 
 pleasant duty to which I can only occasion- 
 ally nerve myself. 
 
 If you hear or see much of her in Lon- 
 don you might tell me of her doings, for as 
 she is my husband's niece I do not like to 
 lose sight of her. I shall make a point of 
 seeing her soon, for I often feel anxious 
 about her, though she is no longer young, 
 and since India her complexion has gone 
 off terribly With best love to your dear 
 girls, I am, your affectionate friend, 
 
 MARIA WILLIAMS. 
 
II 
 
 MADGE BROOKE TO MRS. HAMILTON 
 (NELLIE) 
 
 BOLTON Row, MAYFAIR, 
 February i, 1884. 
 
 >EAREST NELLIE, No, in- 
 deed. I am not changed at 
 heart, no matter how different 
 I am in manner. If my con- 
 fidence does not go out as 
 readily, if I am more silent, more formal, 
 it is only that I am older, graver, sad- 
 der, not that I have changed towards you, 
 dear Nell. That I shall never do. I am 
 just as fond of you as ever, though I do 
 not show it as often or as easily as be- 
 fore I had learned to be silent long and 
 much and that restraint and the hiding 
 of her feelings constitute half the power of 
 woman. And to you, dear, I will always be 
 at heart the same the Madge that was in 
 the days when we used to hide away from 
 
54 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 Aunt Maria, and felt so happy when she 
 punished us by taking no notice of our do- 
 ings. Poor Aunt Maria ! I love her as lit- 
 tle as ever, and am often angry with myself 
 on her account, but she has really been odi- 
 ous lately ; whenever we meet she tries to 
 impress on me that I am old and ugly, and 
 fast becoming of no account not that I 
 ever was of much account in her eyes. Is 
 not the conduct of relations often amazing? 
 Their singular frankness towards each oth- 
 er, their rudeness, and their total want of 
 appreciation, or else their absolutely blind 
 belief. I do not quarrel with this last it 
 should be, it is delicious, it is compensation 
 for the scepticism of the rest of the world ; 
 but I do quarrel with the first at least, I 
 don't quarrel, but I try to keep clear of 
 Aunt Maria giving me advice that is wholly 
 disagreeable and thoroughly impossible. 
 But let us leave Aunt Maria and think of 
 ourselves. 
 
 You are changed, too, poor Nell, in the 
 six years since we parted. I cannot bear to 
 think of you alone in the world with just 
 your one little child ; and yet I envy you 
 you have a great happiness to remember, a 
 great love, though sorrow is the price of 
 both. My memories madden me ; the hopes 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 55 
 
 and fears, the sweetness and shame of which 
 they are made ; oh, that I had yours ! Some 
 things are worse than death, dear Nell. 
 Would it not have been worse if your hus- 
 band had grown cruel and cold and calculat- 
 ing, to have seen him love you less, forget 
 you perhaps altogether ? You do not know 
 this grief. Yet I know all you have suf- 
 fered, dear, since I saw you last, six years 
 ago, when you waved your handkerchief as 
 we left Bombay. 
 
 Yes, dear yes and yes, of course and for- 
 ever let us be friends again, close friends if 
 it be possible. Gradually I may thaw, and 
 my face no longer have written on it, as you 
 say it now has, a life's history that is a closed 
 book to you. But you must let me tell you 
 as I can and when I will. We are too old, 
 too sad to sit down as we did when we were 
 girls, and tell or write our innermost thoughts 
 and feelings by the yard. I may tell you all 
 mine if you care to know them ; I would 
 share all yours ; but confidences must fit and 
 shape themselves to events, and wait on the 
 needs of our heats and souls. 
 
 I wish you were in London, that we met 
 oftener; but if that cannot be so, we will 
 write, and you will at least see that I have 
 not forgotten that success has not spoiled 
 
$6 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 
 
 me. Success? Sad failure, if you did but 
 know. 
 
 I wish you were in London. I want you so 
 much to be friends with John again, as you 
 were years ago when you were both children. 
 He has not forgotten you ; he would like to 
 see you often here, as I should. He is not 
 a bit spoiled, though he has tasted the sweets 
 of success dear John. 
 
 It was so vexing that Mrs. Power came 
 the only afternoon that you and I had to- 
 gether. . . . 
 
 I must tell you one odd thing before I 
 finish. You remember James Harrison? 
 It is years since we parted at Daffodil. The 
 other day he suddenly appeared again. He 
 and you ; and I have news also from Mark 
 Cuthbertson, who has been long away. It 
 is as if time were suddenly giving up its 
 past. James is very prosperous, a widower 
 with two children. It would be droll if it 
 were not sad. 
 
 I cannot write more to-night, and this is 
 long enough as it is. It is quite strange to 
 give myself out even to you. MADGE. 
 
Ill 
 
 MADGE BROOKE TO HER BROTHER 
 
 >EAREST JOHN, Of course I 
 will see to all the things, and I 
 am delighted to hear that you 
 are coming back. It has been 
 a dull fortnight without you. 
 There is little news Nellie Hamilton was 
 in town for a few hours last week; but 
 that tiresome Mrs. Power came in and 
 spoiled our talk. Don't let us know Mrs. 
 Power if we can help it ; but we must try 
 not to offend Aunt Maria, whose friend 
 she is. 
 
 Mr. Harrison (for I will not call him 
 James) has called two or three times, and 
 I have been vexed with myself for being 
 bored by him. His attitude towards every- 
 thing irritates me, he is so very dogmatic; 
 yet I believe he has the kindest heart be- 
 hind his badly made coat. Every one wor- 
 ries or bores me a little now, except you 
 
58 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 
 
 and Nellie. Nellie looks very young and 
 sweet and sad and she is all three. When 
 you marry, John, dear, I hope your wife will 
 be like Nell ; then I shall be satisfied. 
 
 Sir Noel Franks asked us to dine on 
 Thursday, but I refused. It seemed a pity 
 to give up a quiet evening together for any 
 dinner-party in the world. No, I am not 
 flirting with him. Do not be concerned 
 about his feelings, he is too much taken up 
 with the world to be romantic. Perhaps he 
 would marry me ; but his last idea is being 
 in love with me. How odd it would be to 
 see him in love. When that comes off, no 
 matter with whom it is, may I be there to 
 see. MADGE. 
 
 P.S. I forgot one bit of news. I met 
 Mrs. Berry. She says Mark is coming back 
 to England next month. 
 
IV 
 
 MADGE BROOKE TO JAMES HARRISON 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 EAR MR. HARRISON, I fear 
 I cannot be at home this after- 
 noon, nor give you the private 
 interview for which you ask. If 
 you will forgive me for saying 
 it plainly, I feel that there is nothing con- 
 cerning my happiness in which you have a 
 voice ; nothing concerning my future that 
 we need discuss together. 
 
 For your happiness and your future you 
 have my most cordial good wishes, and be- 
 lieve me, yours sincerely, 
 
 MADGE BROOKE. 
 
THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 Friday Night, 
 
 >EAR JAMES (since you stipu- 
 late that I will not call you 
 Mr. Harrison), Your letter has 
 reached me, of course. Ever 
 since it came I have been star- 
 ing all the by -gone possibilities in the 
 face. Why did you write it ? I tried to 
 prevent your doing so ; for it can alter 
 nothing, can do no good. It would have 
 been far better to have left the past alone, 
 instead of trying to rake it back over all 
 these years. You beg me to be explicit; 
 to tell you all that is in my thoughts. 
 You do not know what you are asking ; but 
 you have set me wondering how, indeed, to 
 answer you. There is only one way, since 
 you will have it so to be absolutely and 
 cruelly truthful at last, cost you and me what 
 it will. 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 6l 
 
 You say you feel that I loved you once, 
 and must, in my heart, love you still. You 
 cannot understand why I was false. You 
 think that but for some outside influence, 
 but for some one who overpersuaded me, 
 and did not like you, I should have been 
 true. It seems so cruel to sweep away the 
 illusion of your life, but I had better do so. 
 There is no love in my heart for you now ; 
 there was never any in the past. No one, 
 nothing came between us that had not ex- 
 isted from the first ; and, if I was false, it 
 was because I was never true to you never. 
 You fell in love with me that summer you 
 stayed with the Aliens almost at first sight. 
 I remember how your face used to light up 
 when you spoke to me; I remember your 
 smile when you looked at me, your voice 
 full of love, boyish love, but true and stanch 
 love of me. I have often wondered at it 
 since, for I was just an unformed girl in 
 those days, with few attractions ; but never 
 in all the years since, in which I have been 
 sophisticated enough to doubt anything, has 
 there ever been a doubt of the depth and 
 truth of your love for me. 
 
 You were twenty-two and I was seven- 
 teen. You were attentive enough all that 
 month you stayed in Wales. Then you went 
 
62 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 away, rather to Aunt Maria's vexation, with- 
 out any hint of intentions. She was never 
 kind to me. She had always hated being 
 obliged to take in a not well-off niece and 
 
 o 
 
 nephew, so that John and I had a bad time 
 I worse than he, for he was much away, 
 and when he went to Oxford, his life at 
 Daffodil virtually ended. She wanted to get 
 rid of me. I was a little older than her own 
 daughters ; she wanted me married before 
 they came out; it would be an excellent 
 thing if you proposed, she said, and im- 
 pressed on me again and again that I must 
 get married; that it was the one hope of my 
 life, and should be its one ambition. She 
 would not have thought you good enough 
 for one of her own daughters. You were 
 dull and plodding, " something in the City," 
 a third son of a well-to-do merchant, not 
 well off yourself or likely to be. She wel- 
 comed you because she wanted you to take 
 me off her hands; but she did not think 
 much of you you with just three hundred 
 a year and no money besides. But you were 
 good enough for me. We could manage 
 very well on your income, she told me ; you 
 would be at your office all day and so not 
 trouble me much. When John left Oxford 
 and settled in London he could live with us 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 63 
 
 and so help out our income "if he ever 
 made one of his own." I remember those 
 words so well. John ! who is now well-off 
 and famous. If she could have only guessed 
 in those days what he would have become in 
 these, she would have behaved differently. 
 If she could have guessed that you would 
 grow rich, she would have made more of you 
 and thought you far too good for me. 
 
 But you went away and made no sign. 
 Then she declared that you had just been 
 flirting with me, she had not really supposed 
 you meant anything, and it was very un- 
 likely I should ever marry; she wondered 
 whether I could not find a situation as com- 
 panion it would be no disgrace, far better 
 than living on my relations ; and then she 
 wondered if you boasted of your flirtation 
 with me, and hoped I should not take your 
 desertion to heart. You, a man, cannot un- 
 derstand the gall and wormwood, the posi- 
 tive shame all this was to a girl. If I had 
 been a few years older, I should not have 
 borne it, I should have gone out into the 
 world and fought it as best I could ; later, 
 too, I should have felt that there were other 
 men, other lovers in the future for me, and 
 eagerly have awaited the right one, or have 
 calmly looked out for one who at any rate 
 
 
64 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 better took my girlish fancy. But as it was, 
 I felt powerless. I bore her gibes and my 
 own half-shame, and almost prayed that you 
 would return and so stop her sneers; and 
 you came. Aunt Maria asked you for a few 
 days to Daffodil. A cold dread took pos- 
 session of me as you came up the drive. 
 Your coming felt like the arrival of the 
 executioner to one who, even if he would, 
 for some strange reason dared no longer live. 
 You devoted yourself to me, and, with alter- 
 nations of fear and courage, I accepted and 
 repulsed all your attentions do you re- 
 member? Yet I secretly triumphed where 
 you showed for you had no shame of lov- 
 ing me, dear James how much you cared 
 for everything I said and did. How I hate 
 myself for the mean part I played, for my 
 cowardice, my meanness, my vanity. How 
 you will hate and despise me as you read 
 this letter. Thank God yes, thank God, 
 that it is not possible for any man's love to 
 survive the reading of a letter like this. 
 But it shall be finished through and through 
 to the end, and all things made clear to you 
 at last. 
 
 " Has he not spoken yet ?" Aunt Maria 
 asked, as day after day of your visit went by 
 and still you left me free. " Perhaps, after 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 65 
 
 all, he is only laughing at you." I felt that, 
 at any cost, I must stop her maddening 
 sneers and prove that I could win an honest 
 man's love. After that ? Well, God knows. 
 And so, James, in sheer desperation as well 
 as blind wickedness, I led you on and co- 
 quetted with you, till I saw that you were 
 hopelessly my slave, and then I stood aghast, 
 afraid at what I had done, and tried to hold 
 you off. 
 
 The last night of your visit was Isabel's 
 birthday party. Neither you nor I will ever 
 forget it, I suppose. When it was over, and 
 while the guests were hurrying away, all at 
 the same moment, as they used to do at 
 those simple Welsh parties, you found me 
 alone in the little study where John used to 
 do his lessons. I had fled there for one 
 moment's peace, one moment to think alone, 
 not knowing that you were behind me. Then 
 it was that you found words to speak, and 
 told me you loved me, and asked me to be 
 your wife. I did not dare say no I had 
 encouraged you too much ; besides, I knew 
 what would be in store for me if I let you 
 go away refused. So I nodded my head for 
 answer, feeling, unconsciously, as a gambler 
 when he throws a stake that means life or 
 death, curious and afraid at what next will 
 s 
 
66 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 come, dreading, perhaps, both alike, no mat- 
 ter which way the dice fall. How well I re- 
 member it ! You put your arms round me ; 
 I shuddered and turned from the kiss I 
 could not have borne to touch my lips, and 
 knew in that one moment what I had done, 
 what was before me ; my eyes were opened; 
 it was like eating of the tree of knowledge. 
 I never said I loved you. You were so ab- 
 sorbed, so overpowered with love yourself, 
 you never noticed my silence. You were 
 unsophisticated, too, James ; you had never 
 played lover before, and did not know how 
 much to expect, how much a girl gives back 
 to the man who has won her heart ; and all 
 my shrinkings and shortcomings you accept- 
 ed and put down to shyness. I begged you 
 not to marry me yet ; do you remember ? I 
 was too young, I said, fearingly. 
 
 " In a year ?" you pleaded ; and I an- 
 swered : 
 
 " Oh no, not in one year, but two ; I shall 
 be only nineteen then." 
 
 It should be as I wished, you said. You 
 would wait for me seven years, or seventy, if 
 I would have it so, and you might only know 
 the day would really come when I should be 
 yours. So I consented. 
 
 Two years. When we are young they seem 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 67 
 
 like a lifetime. Before two years were over 
 I should have learned to love you, I thought, 
 have grown reconciled to the idea of mar- 
 riage or have died. Two years ! No world 
 could stand still, no fate remain unchanged 
 through two whole years. There was noth- 
 ing I would not have consented to do at the 
 end of that long time so that I gained a res- 
 pite for the moment. Time and change and 
 Fate would arrange things before two years 
 had passed. So we went back to the draw- 
 ing-room engaged, you and I ; you beaming 
 with happiness, I feeling like a prisoner, and 
 yet knowing that I ought to be happy, too ; 
 I was engaged, and you loved me ; I should 
 be important among all the girls about me ; 
 some day, too, I should have a wedding, be 
 dressed in white, and stared at by all the 
 village. I felt a little elation now the deed 
 was done that for the moment passed itself 
 for happiness, and made me feel gentle and 
 grateful towards you grateful to you for 
 rescuing me from the position that had been 
 mine until your love came and made the 
 whole world kinder towards me. I think 
 Aunt Maria was angry at the prospect of 
 our long engagement ; she had hoped to get 
 rid of me sooner angry even at the trivial 
 importance the engagement gave me, and 
 
 
68 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 she vented her ill-humor in letting me know 
 that the matrimony in view would be hum- 
 drum enough. 
 
 You went away, and your letters came ; 
 those ceaseless letters filled with love, at 
 which I wondered and was flattered, and 
 half amused, and yet from which I shrank. 
 Nellie Wentworth, the vicar's daughter, was 
 engaged at that same time. She used to 
 watch for the postman every morning, and 
 only lived from post to post. She kissed 
 her letters when they came, and carried 
 them about with her to read again and 
 again through the day. I used to look at 
 her, half -wondering, thinking how odd it 
 was to be happy like that to love like that. 
 When your letters came, I read them and put 
 them by. I think I should have shivered 
 if one had touched my face, and to have 
 kissed one would have withered me, for girl- 
 hood has very strong repulsions which it 
 cannot help. It was an odd feeling to have 
 towards the man I was going to marry. Do 
 not blame me over-much : I could not help 
 it, and it was not born in me till I had prom- 
 ised to marry you, and your arms had felt 
 like prisoners' chains. 
 
 I struggled to be true, to love you, to be 
 kind to you, and tried to write so that you 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 69 
 
 should be pleased. I wanted to be good 
 oh ! I longed more than I can tell you to be 
 good, to be holy, as I had vowed to be a 
 year before my confirmation ; and I used to 
 feel that I must be true to you I must I 
 must, or all my life be iniquitous. I was so 
 unutterably lonely, too, in those days ; I was 
 at the age when one's heart begins to awake, 
 when one's woman's nature begins to assert 
 itself ; I wanted, and did not know that I 
 wanted, a true woman's life, its duties and 
 pleasures and love, the love of those I loved ; 
 but there was none I loved save Nellie, who 
 was about to be married, and John, who was 
 away, and whose life I expected would be 
 separated much from mine. I was never 
 happy never for one moment while we 
 were engaged. The one fair and honest 
 thing I did was to jilt you. Thank God I 
 did, for I am not a bad woman ; but if, in 
 those days, I had married a man who did 
 not possess my whole heart, I do not know 
 what might or might not have happened had 
 temptation, come in my way or even if it 
 had not ; for I am passionate, James, not 
 merely in my likes, but in my dislikes ; and 
 though I never actually disliked you, I 
 should have learned to dislike nay, to hate 
 an angel had I married one without loving 
 
70 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 him with all my heart. What I suffered 
 while we were engaged no words can tell. 
 I learned from Nellie Wentworth to know 
 what love might be to understand the hap- 
 piness I should be forever shutting out from 
 my life in marrying you. She was so hap- 
 py at the thought of being her soldier's 
 wife, though she knew that directly they 
 were married he would take her away from 
 all she loved to India. I only loved John 
 in the world, and Nellie herself just those 
 two, and had no happy home, but I felt that 
 I should die if I were married to you and 
 going away alone with you. 
 
 Nellie and I told each other all our little 
 secrets we vowed to tell them all our lives, 
 but I was false in that, too. I could not tell 
 her that I was engaged to a man I did not 
 love, and who yet imagined that I loved 
 him ; for I knew that you did think I loved 
 you. Nellie was always ready to talk of 
 Tom Hamilton, to whom she was engaged : 
 but I never talked back again of you. I 
 couldn't ; I wanted to shut you out of my 
 thoughts, and dreaded your coming into my 
 life more intimately than letters brought 
 you. 
 
 And still it seemed as if by every post 
 you loved me more and more, and rejoiced 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 71 
 
 more and more at the prospect of our mar- 
 riagethat marriage of which the thought 
 made my heart stand still, and my face grow 
 cold, for my feelings took a stronger turn, 
 and I liked you less and less instead of 
 more and more. 
 
 You came at Christmas ; my heart sank 
 as I went down to meet you in the hall. 
 Do you remember how I shunned you dur- 
 ing that visit ? I wonder you put up with 
 me ; but you were miserable I saw that, 
 though you made no protest. 
 
 A month later you wrote, trying to hurry 
 on our marriage. That brought things to a 
 climax. I shed bitter tears over that ten- 
 der letter of yours, and wished a thousand 
 times that I were dead. I loathed myself 
 that I must pain you so, but still I felt that 
 the time had come when I could live a lie 
 no longer. So I wrote and begged you let 
 me off. I told you I did not love you and 
 should die if you married me. You know 
 all that followed. I thought you would 
 break your heart from your letters ; but no, 
 you seemed to get over it soon enough in 
 eighteen months you had married. 
 
 Aunt Maria thought I was mad, I think, 
 but it did not matter, for it was soon after 
 John had taken his degree, and he brought 
 
72 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 me to London. That was the first happi- 
 ness that being alone with him and free 
 that I had known since my dear mother 
 died years and years before, when we were 
 children. 
 
 Do not be harsh to me, James, now that 
 you know how it all came about. No one 
 ever came between no one ; I was false 
 from beginning to end, save when I set you 
 free. It was a long, distinct chapter of life 
 that ended with our half -frantic letters; 
 yours doubting my words, believing that I 
 did and must love you in spite of myself : 
 mine determined that there should be no 
 more pretence between us, and that I must 
 and would be free. It was in that same 
 chapter that life in London began the dear 
 life with my brother John. He was not 
 well-known or well-off then, but poor and 
 struggling. We lived in shabby lodgings 
 on very little money; he was out all day, 
 and I used to walk about the streets, think- 
 ing how good it was to be free ; how I 
 should have died if we had married ; how 
 terrible it would have been if, every night, 
 instead of John coming home to the simple 
 dinner, you had come, and you my husband. 
 Even in thought I shrank from it. Was I 
 not right to break it off ? Love is a strange 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 73 
 
 thing, that will not be controlled, that will 
 have nothing to do with conveniences, that 
 will not be governed by reason, that may go 
 to the worst and leave the best a thing al- 
 together beyond our ken ; and you may hate 
 me for my conduct I deserve it but it 
 was not my fault that I did not love you ; 
 I could not help it Does this explain it all 
 to you at last? It answers your letter to 
 me to day, too, and all its questions or 
 nearly all. 
 
 But there shall be no more mistakes, and 
 I will answer the chief question yet more 
 plainly. No, no, and forever, no. I cannot 
 marry you. You will be content, you say, to 
 marry me, even if I do not love you if I 
 will only let you try to win me, and so on. No, 
 I cannot consent to that. You do not know 
 what you are proposing my ruin, body and 
 soul, perhaps yours and your children's, for 
 I should be restless and miserable and des- 
 perate, and I am a strange woman, to whom 
 fear of many kinds is unknown. I could 
 dare or do some strange things without 
 flinching if I were driven. If I married 
 you I might become torpid, dull, or heavy, 
 or I might I do not know, I cannot say ; I 
 only do know that I should bring you no 
 happiness, and we must be strangers. Be- 
 
74 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 fore this letter is finished you will probably 
 be thankful that it is so. Don't think that 
 I am cold or ungrateful, for, in spite of my 
 conduct, I am neither. If I were cold it 
 would be easier to marry you ; as it is, I can- 
 not. If I ever marry for anything but love 
 it must be for more than you can give 
 me. Those last words may make you de- 
 spise me, but I would rather you do that 
 than love me. Your love does not even 
 please my vanity, and that, too, may make 
 you angry, but I cannot help it ; so that you 
 do not talk to me of love, I care for nothing 
 concerning you, and I cannot make myself 
 do so, for my heart and soul live wide miles 
 apart from yours, and will not take account 
 of you. 
 
 It made me shudder to read your letter. 
 You have always loved me, you say ; you 
 think there has not been a day, an hour^ 
 since we parted all those years ago, in which 
 you have not loved me. I could think of 
 nothing when I read those words but of how 
 terrible it must have been for your wife. 
 No wonder she died, poor soul ! I seem to 
 feel her reproachful eyes upon me ; I can 
 imagine her face, grave and sad, her poor 
 lone heart aching for that which was never 
 hers no wonder she died. Surely she would 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 75 
 
 rise from her grave if I took her place, and 
 yet a place she never had, and played moth- 
 er to her children her children, whom I do 
 not think I should love, to whom at best I 
 should only be dutifully good, for they are 
 not even the children of a man I love, or 
 have ever loved, but of a man I do not love, 
 and of a woman on whom I never set eyes. 
 There is another thing. You, though you 
 love me, would want to keep a rein over me. 
 You have ideas of a man being master, of a 
 woman being submissive ; you would want 
 to show me clearly at times though there 
 had arisen no necessity that you were mas- 
 ter ; you would think it manly to do so. But 
 I should hate a man who kept a rein over 
 me ; it is what the men do who are not sure 
 of themselves, the men who feel that they 
 must always be making signs that they 
 are strong, lest they be suspected of weak- 
 ness. It would seem to me like a jailer 
 rattling the keys as he walked by the cells, 
 lest the prisoners should forget that they 
 had lost their freedom. I remember your 
 asking me once when we were engaged if I 
 kept an account of what I spent, of the few 
 odd pounds a year that were allowed me, 
 and when I said no, you said, in a firm voice 
 that sent a thrill through me, a thrill of op- 
 
76 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 position, " You will have to do it when you 
 are my wife, darling." It was like the flick 
 of a whip before my eyes; it was the tone 
 of the master who meant to have his way, 
 to make it clearly felt that he was master, 
 and to let no other will but his be felt with- 
 in his doors. I think those words alone did 
 much to strengthen the impossibilities. They 
 opened a sudden vista of the future, and ev- 
 ery bit of me rose in revolt. I should have 
 hated the life you would have expected me 
 to lead : its rules and obligations, its monot- 
 ony. I dreaded it even when I was only 
 seventeen and knew nothing of the world, 
 but now it would kill me. You think, too, 
 that woman should keep in the background, 
 that home life and duties should be sufficient 
 for her, that her views of the outer world 
 should be gained from her husband, and 
 those views as a matter of course agree 
 with his. You would not approve of much 
 going out, of social success even, of individ- 
 uality of any sort. This would fret and 
 worry me. I am no strong-minded woman ; 
 I do not want to go to meetings, still less to 
 speak at them. But I must have freedom 
 freedom to think and read and speak and 
 form my own ideas, as all thinking men let 
 their wives do now. Since John prospered 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 77 
 
 so well, and gave me as his sister a place 
 in the world, I have had what I wanted. I 
 could not give it up to go to live in Gower 
 Street as your wife, to look after your house, 
 to plan your quiet evening dinner, to arrange 
 your children's lessons, to let all my joys 
 and sorrows be your shaping, submitting 
 always my will to yours. My life, for all its 
 dreams and ambitions, is not a happy one, 
 has not been, but 
 
 [ Unfinished, and not sent.} 
 
VI 
 
 TO THE SAME 
 (THE LETTER THAT WAS SENT) 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 HAVE had your letter, of course, 
 and would give much if you 
 had never written it, for I can- 
 not answer it as you wish ; and 
 I beg you to take this as final, 
 and to believe, as I know, that I could nei- 
 ther make you happy nor be happy with you. 
 It seems so trite to say that I am your 
 friend, but I am and truly, and pray for 
 your happiness but that must be found 
 apart from me. M. B. 
 
VII 
 
 MADGE TO NELLIE 
 
 Saturday Night. 
 
 WILL answer your letter soon, 
 not to-night, for one of my hor- 
 rid moods has overtaken me. 
 A strange thing has happened. 
 I told you in my last letter that 
 James Harrison had called ; that he was a 
 widower with two children. Do you remem- 
 ber how shocked you looked when, a month 
 before your marriage, I told you that my 
 engagement was broken off, that I had never 
 loved him ? I could not make myself ex- 
 plain it all at the time, for one reason 
 among others because I feared your telling 
 Tom. You seemed to think my conduct 
 abominable, and looked at me almost with 
 horror : you with your just one lover whom 
 you loved dearly. 
 
 But no one knows what I had suffered 
 about James Harrison, how my heart used 
 
80 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 to sink when he came, how I shrank from 
 him, and what it was to think of marriage 
 with him. You did not understand how it 
 all was then, but you shall now. Enclosed 
 is the letter I wrote him in answer to his 
 proposal the other day. For, in spite of my 
 conduct, he has asked me again, after all 
 these years, to marry him. It would be im- 
 possible to send it to him, but it will make 
 things clear to you. He has had a decisive 
 note a few lines long. I want you to un- 
 derstand me, then I shall be able to meas- 
 ure your love for me better, to know how 
 strong it is, and that no surprises can make 
 it rock in its foundations. For two women 
 to love each other all things must be clear 
 and fair there must be no mystery and 
 nothing hidden. Between a man and a 
 woman it is different. It does not do, then, 
 to know each other too well ; some barriers 
 should never be broken down, some things 
 left vague and undefined if a man's love 
 especially is to continue. 
 
 To-morrow, perhaps, I will answer your 
 letter, to-day I want to begin making the 
 past clear to you. That is why I send you 
 the impossible letter to James Harrison. It 
 explains itself. We lost sight of each other 
 when all things were ended between us. I 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 8l 
 
 shall never forget how business-like, in spite 
 of his grief, James was in the ending ; he 
 asked for his letters and presents back, and 
 returned mine my letters, that is, for he 
 had had no gifts from me. Every envelope 
 was numbered and dated, and the last com- 
 munication I had from him was a formal 
 acknowledgment of the packet I had for- 
 warded. Eighteen months later I heard 
 that he was married, and, as I thought, con- 
 soled. He passed altogether out of my 
 life. I do not think you and I ever men- 
 tioned his name in India. He seldom even 
 entered my thoughts from the day I heard 
 of his marriage ; before I had hated and 
 loathed myself for my falseness, but after he 
 had taken a wife more repentance seemed 
 unnecessary. 
 
 One afternoon, a month ago, a card was 
 brought in with his name upon it. It was 
 impossible to refuse to see him, and after all 
 those years we met again. He had altered 
 little. He was tall and pale as ever, thin 
 and determined looking. There was an odd 
 business-like manner about him, brought 
 from the city, I suppose, where he is a mer- 
 chant. He looked prosperous, and had an 
 air of confidence that prosperity gives, and 
 yet I felt his hand tremble- as he took mine. 
 
 6 
 
82 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 We sat down and looked at each other in 
 the shy, critical manner of people who meet 
 after long years of silence. He had heard 
 of me through the Aliens. 
 
 " I longed to see you again. You know 
 that I lost my wife ?" he said, abruptly. 
 
 " No, I didn't know it," I told him. 
 
 "I have been a widower for a year," he 
 said, firmly, and waited a moment, and then 
 went on, "One wants to see one's old friends 
 again after a loss like mine." 
 
 " Oh yes, it is very natural," I answered. 
 There was nothing sentimental in his man- 
 ner any more than in his words ; he did not 
 seem in the least inclined to make love. I 
 did not feel at all alarmed on that point ; 
 besides, I had not -yet grasped the fact that 
 he was marriageable. He told me about 
 his wife's last illness, about his two little 
 girls, about his house and his ambitions and 
 plans for the future. He told me in a tone 
 of pride that he was well off, " much better 
 than in the old days he had just set up a 
 brougham." 
 
 "That is nice," I said, and took care not 
 to let him know that John had given me 
 one three years ago. 
 
 The talk dwindled away after a time, 
 just as it used formerly, for James was nev- 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 83 
 
 er great at conversation. He knew but few 
 people ; he never read anything but his dai- 
 ly paper, and the politics he gathered from 
 that he only talked with men ; the topics of 
 the outside world he held to be beyond the 
 grasp of women. He asked about John, 
 and, looking round, remarked, " This room 
 isn't large, but the locality is pretty expen- 
 sive ; John must be making a fortune." 
 
 "No, not a fortune," I answered, "but 
 he is doing well, and I am very proud of 
 his fame." 
 
 He looked up at the last word as if he 
 wondered what it meant. It was evident 
 that he lived out of earshot of John's world. 
 
 " I should like some one to be proud of 
 me," he said, after a minute, with an amused 
 little smile, that showed he thought John's 
 reputation a mere idea of an affectionate 
 relation. Then, after another moment or 
 two, he said, almost suddenly, as if it was a 
 conclusion, and a comforting one, that he 
 had jumped at : 
 
 " It is all professional income, I suppose ? 
 You have not come into any fortune ?" 
 
 "No, we had not come into any fortune," 
 I told him, and he seemed gratified at the 
 intelligence. Somehow I knew that he was 
 thinking that, in spite of John's prosperity, 
 
84 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 I was actually no better off than I had been 
 years ago, and that this thought was a com- 
 fort to him. 
 
 " Master John will be getting married one 
 of these fine days, I expect ?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, I hope so," I answered; and he 
 was silent for a few moments. He looked 
 at his watch, and hesitated. There was al- 
 ways a little hardness in his voice ; it was 
 very hard, yet shy, too, when he spoke again, 
 as though he were saying something on 
 which he had determined beforehand. 
 
 " I should like to bring my little girls to 
 see you, if you will let me Madge." 
 
 He half hesitated before he brought out 
 my Christian name, but he did it firmly. Of 
 course I said I should like to see them ; 
 what else could I say ? 
 
 " I am very anxious that they should be 
 carefully brought up," he went on. " I don't 
 believe in teaching girls too much, unless 
 they have to earn their living, and mine are 
 already provided for. I have put away a 
 good nest-egg for both of them, so they are 
 never likely to have to turn out." 
 
 He had a city way of choosing his 
 phrases, as well as a city manner. He is a 
 very prosperous mercantile sort of person. 
 Intellectual pursuits are as evidently not his 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 85 
 
 as a white tie or a round collar are not his. 
 "Something in the city" is writ large all 
 over him. Don't think that I object to this 
 as not being fine enough. It isn't that. It 
 is that city men obviously city men, with 
 their interests confined to the city never 
 attract me. It is not that they are not grand 
 enough, or that I scoff at their profession 
 don't think that I am such a snob, dear Nell. 
 It is merely a matter of taste. I prefer a 
 country laborer to a city clerk ; thick, muddy 
 shoes and a slouch hat to a slim umbrella 
 and a frock-coat I know little about men's 
 clothes ; but I hate a frock-coat, and it was 
 one of poor James's offences that he wore 
 one. 
 
 I thought he would never go away. I 
 dreaded vaguely what he would say next ; 
 but at last he did go, and virtually without 
 saying anything ; so I breathed freely once 
 more, though I could not forget that he 
 lived only a few miles off, that he was a 
 widower, and that his matrimonial instincts 
 had always been well developed. 
 
 Still, perhaps, after all, I thought, he 
 would not trouble me any more. If few 
 men really believe themselves unattractive, 
 fewer still care to risk refusal twice from 
 the same woman, and those who do are 
 
86 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 generally men of a different nature from 
 James. 
 
 But he came again. He wanted to see 
 John, he said, as an excuse for his visits ; 
 but John was always busy in the day, and 
 when he came home it was generally only 
 just to dress, and perhaps pick me up for 
 dinner and evening parties ; he had no time 
 for James Harrison. Besides, he had al- 
 ways found James a bore, and quite under- 
 stood that but for Aunt Maria I should 
 never have accepted him. So my old lover 
 was allowed to drift into the tide of after- 
 noon callers, who came and went and saw 
 only me. 
 
 One day he asked me if I would go and 
 see his house and children. I tried to ex- 
 cuse myself, and asked him to bring the chil- 
 dren to me. 
 
 " Not till you have first been to my house 
 to see them," he said, decisively ; and I felt 
 that if I refused some strong feeling might 
 be roused in him, which was the last thing 
 I wished. So I consented to go to tea one 
 afternoon. 
 
 "And stay on to dinner, and ask John to 
 come, too ?" he suggested. 
 
 " No," I said, quickly; " I can never make 
 engagements for John." 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 87 
 
 " Well, then, fix a day at once to come to 
 tea," he answered, seeing that more was im- 
 possible ; and from sheer helplessness I did 
 so. I asked if I might take Annie Masters 
 with me, remarking that she was such a 
 pretty girl, and thinking that it would be a 
 blessed thing if he would fall in love with 
 her ; for she was poor, and not over dis- 
 criminating, and so might take him. But, 
 in answering my request, his voice changed 
 and became almost passionate, though pas- 
 sion had never entered into James's love- 
 making formerly. It had been more of the 
 quiet, determined order. 
 
 " I don't want Annie Masters or any 
 one else but you," he said. A little fear 
 crept into my heart. " You know that," he 
 went on, looking at me with his large, cold 
 eyes. " Come alone. I wish it were for al- 
 together." I said nothing, but grew distant 
 and tried to laugh. To my relief a letter 
 was brought in, and he became curious 
 about that, looking at me and waiting for 
 me to open it. He seemed to be bearing 
 down upon me, and with fingers that almost 
 trembled I tore the envelope off a card it 
 enclosed an invitation to a garden-party 
 at Maryborough House. I put it down on 
 the table, and, as a matter of course, he 
 
88 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 looked at it it was so like James to do 
 that. " Do they invite you there ?" he said, 
 with a surprise that nettled me. 
 
 " And why not ?" I asked. 
 
 " I suppose it is on John's account you 
 say he is getting on." 
 
 " I don't see why I should not be invited 
 on my own account," I answered, haughtily. 
 
 "Perhaps H.R.H. admires you," he said, 
 perhaps wishing to be complimentary. 
 
 " You have skill in solving difficult prob- 
 lems," I answered, coldly. He looked at 
 me almost severely, then, with the air of a 
 master, he said : 
 
 "You won't like settling down quietly 
 some day when you are married after all 
 this." 
 
 " Perhaps my husband will not require 
 me to do so." 
 
 " Most husbands like to see their wives 
 settle down and look after their houses like 
 sensible women." 
 
 " Or, I may never marry," I went on, tak- 
 ing no notice of his interruption. He was 
 silent, and then in a voice that obviously 
 came from his heart, he answered, 
 
 " I hope you will, Madge." 
 
 So I went to tea in Gower Street. There 
 was a middle-aged governess with two little 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 89 
 
 girls well-behaved, white -faced children 
 with thin noses, and long tails of plaited 
 dark hair hanging down their backs, just 
 entering the house as I drove up. I pitied 
 them instantly, they looked like puppets, of 
 which the governess pulled the strings. The 
 one inducement to marry James would be 
 the chance of setting aright the lives of 
 those children. 
 
 I wish I could describe the house to, you, 
 that well-kept, well-to-do, substantial house 
 in Gower Streetit made me shiver as a 
 prison might. The dining-room with the 
 big mahogany sideboard, a silver salver in 
 the middle and water-bottle on either side ; 
 the leather-covered chairs, the prints on the 
 wall Martin's " Deluge " and Queen Victo- 
 ria in her robes. I fancied the thick soup, 
 the boiled codfish, the roast mutton, and ap- 
 ple-tart that would form the sort of dinner 
 served there. James watched me, visibly 
 proud of the largeness of his furniture and 
 the dulness of the abode I think he par- 
 ticularly prided himself on the dulness ; it 
 was that that added the great element of 
 respectability to the unmistakable one of 
 well-off ness. Then he took me up into the 
 drawing-room, a little air of triumph in his 
 manner. It was pathetic as well as ridicu- 
 
90 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 lous, for I felt that it was dawning on him 
 that for himself I should never love him, and 
 he was trying to bribe me with the sight of 
 his well-to-do house into marrying him. The 
 drawing-room, he thought, would finish me, 
 and I tried hard to look surprised and pleas- 
 ed. Neat and precise, white walls hung with 
 water-color drawings in gilt frames at equal 
 distances ; easy-chairs with white macassars 
 looking like little shrouds on their backs; 
 little tables about with well -bound books 
 upon them ; in the vases dried grass ; here 
 and there some Japanese fans as the sole 
 concession to the reigning cheap and frivo- 
 lous taste of the day. Over the chimney- 
 piece there was a very large glass in a hand- 
 some gilt frame. I hated myself for not 
 liking what he and hundreds of others, no 
 doubt, would call a comfortable home for 
 all one's life ; but I felt that if I went to 
 live in that house with James for my hus- 
 band, and those poor little girls with whom 
 I should not be allowed to do as I liked for 
 my step-children, I should either go melan- 
 choly mad or commit some awful crime. Yet 
 he looked round with all the pride of owner- 
 ship, and said, with half-shy self-congratu- 
 lation, that he had got on, that he was richer 
 than he had been in the old days in Wales. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 9! 
 
 " Do you remember," he asked, " when I 
 told you I had just three hundred a year? 
 Why, I thought it fairly comfortable then." 
 He dropped his voice, though we were quite 
 alone. The governess and the children were 
 in the dining-room beneath, seeing that the 
 pound-cake came up with the tea, perhaps. 
 " It is nearer three thousand now," he add- 
 ed "more," he whispered. 
 
 " I am very glad," I answered ; " it is so 
 pleasant to hear of one's friends growing 
 rich." He cleared his throat; he looked 
 horribly nervous ; he pulled out a large 
 white handkerchief and passed it slowly 
 along his forehead. Something like fright 
 overtook me ; I crossed the room quickly 
 and stopped before one of the water-color 
 drawings, blue and gray with some patches 
 of green on it ; that was all I knew it to be. 
 
 " Surely, I know that place ?" I said, in a 
 voice of deepest interest. 
 
 " I don't know," he answered, impatient- 
 ly; "it is one of poor Amy's landscapes." 
 Poor Amy, of course, was his wife. 
 
 " Did it ever strike you that landscapes 
 are very much alike ?" I asked. " Nature 
 has only a certain number of varieties. One 
 bit of beach is a good deal like another bit 
 of beach. Then there is the typical English 
 
92 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 view fields dotted with big trees, here and 
 there a comfortable-looking house or a pict- 
 uresque cottage ; perhaps there is a stream- 
 let running through the middle, with nice 
 little curves and vegetation and an accom- 
 paniment of low hills in the distance, that 
 surely might be called the Englishman's 
 own landscape, and " I had been talking 
 against time. Here luckily the door opened 
 and tea was brought in, tea with thin bread- 
 and-butter and pound-cake. The governess 
 and children followed meekly ; it was like a 
 procession. James became almost agitated 
 in watching the arrangement of the cups; 
 he looked quite anxiously at the governess 
 as she poured out the tea in a careful, pre- 
 cise manner that had withal an uncertainty 
 in it. It was clear that afternoon tea in the 
 drawing-room, perhaps afternoon tea at all 
 in that house, was an event. James asked 
 the governess if there ought not to have 
 been a table-cloth (the things had been 
 brought in on a large silver tray) ; he told 
 the children, who had looked on in awe 
 while we drank our tea, to be careful not to 
 drop crumbs on the carpet, when finally, as 
 a treat, they were given a bit of cake. I 
 watched them eat that cake, those white- 
 faced children in frills and tails ; they did it 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 93 
 
 solemnly, holding their plates under their 
 chins. They behaved as if the whole busi- 
 ness were a function I am not sure that 
 they did not think it had something to do 
 with religion. 
 
 Happily for me the clock struck six. I 
 started up, saying I must go that very mo- 
 ment ; might I ask them to send for a han- 
 som ? I looked at the governess in a smil- 
 ing but positive manner. Used to being 
 ruled, she rose instantly and rang the bell 
 before James had the wit to invent any ex- 
 cuse that would give us another minute to- 
 gether. The hansom was announced. I 
 gave one child my glove to button. James 
 offered to do it, but I shook my head, said 
 good-bye to them all round. I would have 
 kissed the children, but feared it might be 
 taken as a sign of unusual interest. In an- 
 other moment I was in the cab ; the doors 
 shut with a bang ; my spirits rose at the 
 sound ; I nodded and laughed a good-bye 
 at James, and in another moment felt as if I 
 were driving away from my possible tomb. 
 
 All that evening I sat and thought of 
 Bombay, of you, of the happy days at Poo- 
 na, of the long evenings when we sat in 
 your drawing-room by the window, that 
 opened onto the terrace with the awning 
 
94 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 over it, and talked far into the night. You 
 were so happy then ; I can see you now in 
 your white dress, and hear you say, " Oh, 
 Madge !" when my wild spirits carried me 
 away. Tom's merry laugh, too ; how it 
 rings in my ears " All over and finished, 
 over and finished," I have said to myself 
 many a time, wondering if it was all a dream. 
 There is one evening that always comes 
 back to me when I sit and think a long, 
 sultry evening when we sat as usual on our 
 low chairs round the wide-open windows, 
 and took in the scent of the flowers, the 
 hum of the insects, the breath of that dear 
 summer-time. It seemed too much to bear 
 the stillness, the hush, the beauty ; it was 
 as though the world in dreamy rapture had 
 stood still. I got up and walked softly about 
 the room, peering, half doubtfully, into the 
 dusky corners, lest some strange shadow 
 lurked there. You called me restless, and 
 told me to go and play. I crossed to the 
 piano ; it stood far back at the other end, 
 from the window, by the white-covered sofa, 
 with the shaded lamp near it. It seems 
 absurd ; but I shall never forget that lamp- 
 shade. It is like part of a story to me ; on 
 it was painted a scene from " Faust." I sat 
 down and played a wild gypsy dance that 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 95 
 
 made one's blood tingle with excitement; 
 it conjured up a picture of dark faces and 
 happy laughter, of castanets and streaming 
 ribbons. I turned and told you so, and 
 Mark Cuthbertson he was always there, 
 do you remember? said, in his laughing, 
 gibing way, that imagination was a delicious 
 land into which idle folk with little to do 
 retreated. I laughed and went on, all the 
 happier for his mockery. You told me to 
 sing, and I did the jewel-song from " Faust " 
 perhaps the lamp-shade had suggested it 
 and then something reminded me of 
 
 "When that time steals our years away." 
 
 I began it, but could not go on, for the tears 
 came to my eyes ; they trickled down my 
 cheeks, though in the dim light no one 
 guessed it. I got up and went back to you 
 with something like despair in my heart, 
 despair, because I was so happy, and some 
 fiend kept whispering to me, " It will soon 
 be over soon be over." 
 
 It seems like a lifetime since those days, 
 yet it is only a few years. Oh, my poor 
 Nellie, if Death, coveting one of that happy 
 group, had but taken me, and left your loved 
 one with you, what a blessed thing it would 
 have been for us both ! For my world was 
 
96 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 at its brightest then. A strange happiness 
 filled the air, and all things seemed too good 
 to be true, too beautiful to be real. Some- 
 times since I have thought that there should 
 be something in our greatest happiness that 
 unconsciously killed, so that no sorrow fol- 
 lowed on it, no bitterness found us more, 
 and the happiness would be ours for all 
 eternity, since nothing could take it from us. 
 Is it not always twelve by the clock that 
 stops at noon ; and are not the strange eyes 
 of the Sphinx for ever and ever open wide 
 and staring over the great sands, though all 
 the centuries pass and all the nations die ? 
 Oh, to have had my heart lulled with that 
 great content in it, my lips grow cold with 
 the laughter of happiness upon them, my 
 eyes dimmed before they had ever looked 
 on sorrow. . . . But to go back. Mark Cuth- 
 bertson scoffed at me. He could not under- 
 stand ; what was there in a song to make 
 one tremble, or in twilight to affect one ? 
 We talked of human happiness. You said 
 it hung so entirely on human beings it could 
 never be secure. He answered you, curtly, 
 " Yours does ; mine does not." 
 I could not bear to hear him say it, though 
 why I did not know. I got up and walked 
 about in the dim room behind us. You 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 97 
 
 called me restless again, and he declared, 
 half-laughing, half-serious, that it did not do 
 to indulge in a pleasant state of feeling too 
 long it unnerved one afterwards ; and then 
 he wondered, perhaps on purpose, if there 
 were any scorpions about, and we got up in 
 alarm, for we were always in terror of them. 
 Tom stood with his arm round your waist, 
 thinking it was too dark to be observed, but 
 Mark saw it, and said good-night in a voice 
 that was half -amused, half -reproving, as 
 though mentally he had shrugged his shoul- 
 ders. But he held my hand for a moment 
 as if he were going to say something, and 
 then remembered we were not alone. . . . 
 
 All that night the scent of flowers filled 
 my room. I could not sleep for thinking 
 how good it would be to die, there on that 
 soft night with my heart brimful of happiness 
 I did not comprehend. ... I get up from 
 writing. ... I have been lying down, living 
 those days and nights over again. I thought 
 them over and over that night, after the visit 
 to Gower Street, and forgot James Harrison 
 altogether. I forgot him the next day and 
 the next, and then there came a letter a 
 careful, neat letter, with an offer of marriage 
 well set out. It was written with his best 
 steel pen, and in his most business-like hand ; 
 
98 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 but there was something in it that touched 
 me, that went to my heart, and made me 
 hate myself for my conduct in days gone by, 
 and that showed me how much, in spite of 
 all I had done, he loved me still. I threw 
 it down, and, putting my face on the sofa 
 cushion, sobbed for shame and hatred of 
 myself, seeing clearly all I had done in the 
 past, and knowing well that I could never 
 make amends. And all the time, Nell, all 
 through that hour of bitter repentance, be- 
 fore my eyes I saw you in the drawing-room 
 at Poona, and lived again through that night 
 when the happiness of life had been so great 
 that I had longed to die before the dear world 
 round me changed and I had learned to suf- 
 fer. For I have suffered, in the years since, 
 bitterest pain and keenest sorrow more 
 than that, burning shame. I may be able to 
 tell you ; I do not know. ... I walked up and 
 down with James's letter in my hand, won- 
 dering what to say to him. I could not de- 
 ceive him any longer, cost him and me what 
 it would. At last I sat down and wrote him 
 a long, long letter. Before it was half done 
 I knew it would be impossible to send it ; 
 but still I went on and on as if for my own 
 eyes to see written down the beginning of 
 my own heart's history. I say the begin- 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 99 
 
 ning, for there is more to follow, though it 
 is far apart from James. This letter I could 
 not send to him I send to you. It will make 
 those long-ago days plain to you at last. 
 I am glad it was written, since it will do 
 this ; but don't say I ought to marry him, 
 that I owe it to him to make what repara- 
 tion I can for the past reparation by long 
 personal sacrifice would only rouse some 
 demon in me- to do worse than I, my very 
 own self, would do. I could make repara- 
 tion, though it took the form of burning 
 agony, for a man I loved ; but not to James 
 Harrison. I am not strong enough for that, 
 or good enough. Let him go. He will find 
 some one better than I, who will prize the 
 love from which I shrink; and meanwhile 
 but I cannot go on. I hate myself so much, 
 and dread lest you will hate me, too, after 
 reading this, and yet it does not tell you the 
 worst of me. M. 
 
VIII 
 
 TO SIR NOEL FRANKS 
 
 >EAR SIR NOEL, Thank you 
 for the lovely flowers. I have 
 been arranging them in the 
 Indian pots you admired. 
 
 I am sorry we did not get to 
 the Bullers, but we were so tired after a very 
 long dinner that we came home instead of 
 going on anywhere else. Perhaps we shall 
 meet at the Geographical Society on Wednes- 
 day. I hope you will not be too learned for 
 ordinary capacities. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 MADGE BROOKE. 
 
IX 
 
 TO MRS. HAMILTON 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 EAREST NELLIE, You are 
 right. Mark Cuthbertson he 
 is the key to my history. 
 
 I wish I had never seen him, 
 for in some strange way, though 
 I do not know whether I hate or love him 
 now, he dominates everything I do or say. 
 He is never wholly out of my thoughts, and 
 yet it is possible that we may never even 
 meet again. I will tell you about him from 
 the beginning as clearly and coherently as 
 I can. 
 
 It is a difficult story to relate, but it will 
 be a relief to write it out, as it was a relief 
 to write that long letter to James Harrison 
 the letter that never went. 
 
 Mark came to Daffodil one vacation with 
 John, years ago when I was a little girl. 
 Probably you do not remember I think 
 
102 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 you were away, or else we did not see each 
 other often in those days. He was eigh- 
 teen and I ten, and to me he was a grown 
 man. He romped and played with me, and 
 was the best companion in the world. I 
 cried the day he went away, though I soon 
 forgot him. He never came again. He 
 passed wholly out of my life till John and I 
 went to India. We landed at Bombay, and 
 the first person we met was Mark Cuthbert- 
 son. He was artist to an illustrated paper, 
 as you know. I can recall the expression 
 of his face, the tone of his voice, his first 
 words as well as if it were but yesterday. 
 John had vanished for a moment, and I was 
 alone, strange and awkward. Suddenly a tall, 
 rather handsome man came up to me 
 
 " Surely you are ' I think he was go- 
 ing to say Miss Brooke, for he hesitated, 
 and then, as if the idea of such formality 
 were absurd, he added, quickly, with a smile, 
 "Madge?" He said it as though he had 
 expected I should understand that he had 
 been waiting for me. In some vague way 
 I did understand; in some strange, helpless 
 manner I saw for a moment into the future, 
 a misty view that vanished and left me si- 
 lent and afraid, but I did not know why or 
 of what. Then the old habit returned, the 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 103 
 
 habit of accepting life as it comes and at 
 the moment, he was life life with the mem- 
 ory of a past in which we had been good 
 friends and easy comrades. "You don't 
 mean that you have forgotten me ?" he ask- 
 ed. " I am Mark Cuthbertson ; don't you 
 remember what fun we had at Daffodil when 
 you were a little girl? I knew you were 
 coming by this boat. Where is Jack?" It 
 was so that it all began. 
 
 He was always with me in Bombay just 
 as he was in Poona. He came every day, 
 all day, half the night. There was in his 
 being with us a naturalness, a matter- of- 
 courseness, that admitted of no question. 
 He and John were the dearest friends in 
 the world had been all their lives; were 
 brothers in all but name. It would have 
 been strange, especially after their long part- 
 ing, if they had not been together as much 
 as possible, and when John had to go off 
 farther about the railway, and I was left 
 with you at Poona, I think it was a comfort 
 to him that Mark was near and able to 
 look after me. You liked him, your hus- 
 band did, we all did. Do you remember 
 how thoroughly he did as he chose with us 
 all, though we could none of us do as we 
 chose with him, or put a single social shac- 
 
IO4 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 kle on him, and how handsome he was in 
 those days, how unconventional and differ- 
 ent from most of the men who hung about 
 us? 
 
 Poona is a dangerously fascinating place, 
 dear Nell. Perhaps it is the mangoes, the 
 wonderful profusion of roses, the lake, the 
 determination of every one to get all the 
 enjoyment possible out of surroundings. I 
 do not know, but life there is not a matter 
 of work, of thought, of study, but rather of 
 beauty, of happiness, of indolence and en- 
 joyment of living. Don't you think so ? I 
 did not then, but insensibly I felt it ; and 
 that was more dangerous than thinking it 
 and being awake. You were taken up at 
 that time with your own life, with Tom, with 
 your baby, with all that belongs to life's 
 happiness, so that you did not notice what 
 was going on with me, and something held 
 my lips fast. There was nothing to conceal, 
 but it was impossible to talk to Mark. The 
 beginning of my madness was on me, I sup- 
 pose. He and I together only talked of 
 books and politics and pictures, mostly of 
 pictures and of subjects for them, and of 
 music the usual talk of people in our posi- 
 tion thrown much with each other. Senti- 
 ment we never talked ; he told me that he 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 10$ 
 
 was poor ; that he did not believe in love ; 
 that he had a dread of matrimony ; that he 
 did not care much for human beings, though 
 he was fond of John. Women, I learned 
 instinctively, he did not believe in he liked 
 to look at pretty faces, but he did not trust 
 them ; he was not able, as a rule, to make a 
 woman his friend. He thought women in- 
 ferior to men, that they should be in sub- 
 jection to them, should give way to them, 
 should be content with their own part in the 
 world and their part was first to be pretty 
 and submissive and charming, and then as 
 they grew older to be drudges, or if not 
 exactly that, to look after home, to mother 
 children, and leave the rest of life to the 
 stronger sex. His views regarding women 
 were a good deal like James Harrison's. 
 Only the one man had a world of power 
 over me, and the other had none ; one was 
 clever and fascinating, and one was not; 
 from one the least control in the world was 
 not to be borne, and from the other it was 
 sweetness not to be described. I was at 
 the age when masterfulness in a man strikes 
 a woman as manliness, and gives him at 
 once a hold upon her. Now that I am old- 
 er and see clearly, I know well enough how 
 to measure the strength of the masterful 
 
106 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 man it does not take long. I know his 
 inward grudgingness towards women, his 
 shallowness, his unconscious fear of being 
 found out. Yet even now I believe I could 
 bend my neck thankfully to be Mark's slave, 
 and think the slavery sweetest life. I loathe 
 myself for it, but it is so, dear Nell. 
 
 He gave me some lessons in sketching; 
 it is always a dangerous thing to take les- 
 sons in anything from a fascinating man, 
 and in sketching out-of-doors with the man- 
 goes shading us and the rose-breath filling 
 the air, and the sunshine and the blue sky 
 and the delicious sense of Nature at her 
 highest noon that India always gives what 
 else could one of two at least do but fall in 
 love ? We took long rides together, too 
 for I sat badly, and he wanted to improve 
 me, so we sauntered and cantered beside the 
 lake that seemed to be forever conscious of 
 its own beauty, and rejoicing beneath the 
 heavenly blue it reflected. He hung about 
 me always, and controlled me altogether, and 
 I rejoiced, as a woman always does, in being 
 controlled by a clever man ; even you saw 
 enough of him to know that he was clever, 
 though he was too indolent to gain the suc- 
 cess that was his due. John was devoted 
 to him, and often while we were at Bombay 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN IOJ 
 
 sat up far into the night talking with him. 
 He talked well on most subjects, and had 
 an original way of looking at things, a pleas- 
 ant cynicism, a carelessness about the emo- 
 tional side of life, though he awoke it in all 
 about him, that fascinated me entirely. 
 
 John was delighted that Mark and I were 
 good companions. He had a boundless be- 
 lief in his friend, and thought it an excellent 
 thing that there in India a man older than 
 myself he was seven-and-twenty clever, 
 and so on, should in a brotherly fashion look 
 after me. He knew that Mark had not love- 
 making or matrimony in his mind, though if 
 it had been otherwise he would, I think, have 
 been glad enough. John himself has always 
 been much more taken up with the intellect- 
 ual than the human side of life, and he for- 
 gets how much the majority of people con- 
 cern themselves about the latter. Dear old 
 John ! He has never been in love yet, save 
 with you when you were ten, dear Nell. I 
 hope he will one day love some dear woman 
 who will understand how true and great a 
 heart she has won. 
 
 But do you understand now how my re- 
 lations with Mark came about, how easily 
 things drifted ? It was a happy time for me; 
 a strange new life, and before it there seemed 
 
108 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 to be a happy, hazy future. But what had I 
 to do with that ? The present was sufficient; 
 I troubled about nothing, but just took the 
 days as they came ; and all were spent with 
 him, or were full of thoughts of him. So it 
 was that, without any love-making, without a 
 single word that my heart could lay hold of, 
 we yet drew very close indeed, and seemed 
 unable to live apart. 
 
 Once I made him angry, for our relations 
 were distinct enough in a way. He was au- 
 tocrat, and I obeyed him. It seemed natu- 
 ral when I remembered that, years ago at 
 Daffodil, he had only played with me on con- 
 dition that I was good. I offended him that 
 afternoon at Bombay. I forget why ; but he 
 did not come near me again. And the next 
 day, when he dropped in at breakfast-time 
 to show John a series of sketches he had 
 made, he hardly spoke to me. It nearly 
 broke my heart. In his sight and in John's 
 I held my head high, but secretly I wept 
 floods of tears. It seemed as if the world 
 was at an end. 
 
 That evening, the evening of the day on 
 which he had shown the sketches to John, 
 there was a ball at General Durham's. I 
 wore a white dress ; I put white flowers in 
 my hair. I knew that my face was white, 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 109 
 
 too, and my heart was a load too heavy for 
 mortal woman to carry. I stood by John's 
 side watching the dancers. He went off with 
 his partner and left me alone. I saw you in 
 the midst of a group at the far end of the 
 room, but could not drag myself to you. 
 Some one asked me to dance two or three 
 did but I shook my head, and sat still and 
 cold and sad in the corner in which John 
 had left me. Strange chords in my heart 
 vibrated to the music, the lights blinded me. 
 I felt like a woman slowly turning to stone. 
 Above me there seemed to be a heavy cloud 
 in which was the whole weight of the dreary 
 heaven. It was coming down down on 
 my head. Soon I should fall beneath it, 
 crushed; yet, still I sat blankly staring at 
 the ball-room, and, as I hoped, making no 
 sign of the deadening that was going on 
 within me. All this, Nell, and yet I give you 
 my word that I did not know it was love. 
 It is long before a girl, and a simple one, as 
 I was then though I had already treated 
 one lover badly, and could remember the 
 protestations of others since my arrival in 
 India lets herself know what her malady 
 is ; long enough before she dares say to her- 
 self, " I love him." Though her heart beats 
 quickly when she hears a step, and all the 
 
110 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 wide world changes at the sound of a voice, 
 she remains a mystery, a secret from herself, 
 a creature of new aches and joys and indefi- 
 nite longings till he speaks, till he bids her 
 awake to a new life and be blessed in it, or 
 till some shock makes her understand. 
 
 Suddenly, for I did not see him coming, 
 Mark was before me. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" he asked. " You 
 are not dancing ?" 
 
 "No, I cannot; I am tired," I answered. 
 He looked at me wonderingly. 
 
 "Let us go into the garden," he said; "we 
 shall be alone there." 
 
 With a long sigh of relief I put my arm 
 through his, and without another word we 
 left the ball-room. The garden was deserted. 
 There was a long, winding path-way, thick 
 with flowers and palms on either side, and 
 then, of course, the inevitable mango grove. 
 We went towards it. The air was still and 
 overladen with perfume; the ground was 
 strewn with petals from the rose-bushes. 
 The darkness seemed to have gathered with 
 strange intensity into corners and beneath 
 trees. The light from the ball-room did not 
 reach us, but we saw each other's faces 
 clearly against a background of dim foliage. 
 We went up and down beneath the mangoes 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN III 
 
 without a word. It seemed at first as if we 
 must each think silently, and to speak would 
 be impossible. At last he turned and asked 
 me, half mockingly, 
 
 " Have we made it up ?" 
 
 I could not answer, but just nodded my 
 head, and we went on again in silence. Then 
 all at once he stopped, under a lamp that 
 twinkled by a sort of summer-house, and 
 looked at me, at my face, at my trembling 
 hands, and slowly down at my white dress 
 and the white flowers already drooping. "I 
 don't know what you have done to yourself," 
 he said, in a low tone, more to himself than 
 to me, "but you are quite beautiful to-night." 
 It sent a thrill of joy through me ; it was 
 compensation for all the weary hours. I 
 never dreamed of his thinking me beautiful, 
 of his even looking at me at all. No words 
 can say how much I thought of him, how 
 little I thought of myself. "We won't quar- 
 rel any more." he said. " It is too foolish;" 
 and we turned towards the mangoes again. 
 But the silence was sweet enough now, and 
 all the world had changed. Behind every 
 dark corner there hid some strange secret, 
 for the joy of which I was not yet ready. 
 Overhead the sky had lifted, the weight had 
 gone from my heart, and instead there had 
 
112 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 fallen on it a great content it was like 
 drinking in life when life had nearly gone. 
 All at once I slipped, and should have fall- 
 en, but that he pulled me up and held me 
 firmly. He tried as he did so to see into 
 my eyes, but I could not raise them even in 
 that dim light. 
 
 "You were nearly down," he said, ten- 
 derly; "what were you thinking of our 
 quarrel ?" 
 
 "Yes," I answered, helplessly; "I am so 
 sorry " 
 
 "We will never be foolish again," he 
 whispered, and held me in his arms for half 
 a moment and kissed me ; " we will be much 
 wiser." He spoke as if all our lives we were 
 going to be together. I could not be angry 
 at what he had done, or resent it ; all power 
 to guide myself seemed to have gone. Ev- 
 erything had changed, it was as though we 
 had entered another world out there in the 
 Indian garden. Behind us the gates of the 
 old world had shut, and in the new one there 
 walked only one man and one woman he 
 and I. 
 
 He grew colder after that night, more 
 guarded in his manner, I thought it was, be- 
 cause he was ashamed, as I was ; but look- 
 ing back now by the light of after years I 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 113 
 
 understand. He tried to impress on me 
 more clearly than before that he had no in- 
 tention of marrying. But what was that, or 
 what was anything in the future to me ? I 
 cared for nothing but that most happy pres- 
 ent, and could not look beyond it. 
 
 When we left India he managed to get 
 sent to Malta; it was just when the Indian 
 troops were going there, and all Europe's 
 eyes were turned in that direction. He 
 went by our ship, and for those long days 
 at sea we were thrown together with the 
 completeness that only happens on board 
 ship. I do not know, Nell into another's 
 heart one cannot see but I think he did 
 love me then he could not keep away from 
 me ; oh, he must have loved me, Nellie ; I 
 know he did then and in the dear months 
 afterwards, and if I lost him, it was my fault 
 and mine only. I am glad it came into my 
 heart the great love; the overwhelming 
 blind passion that did come for him later; 
 the price has been hard to pay; the years 
 long and bitter since, but life without it 
 would have been a dull and sorry play. 
 For all its folly, all its mistakes, all its sin, 
 I would not have missed my life to be a 
 saint in heaven. 
 
 I think it dawned on John while we were 
 
114 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 on board the Deccan that Mark and I were 
 fond of each other ; but he looked surprised 
 when nothing came of it, and he used to 
 watch me narrowly with a half-puzzled man- 
 ner. Then he evidently concluded it was 
 only friendship, and, having so arranged it 
 in his mind, went back to his own work and 
 was blind enough for long to come. 
 
 At Malta we left Mark and came on alone. 
 I remember the keen pain of parting pain 
 that was sweet enough, for it showed us how 
 much we were to each other ; but it seemed 
 as if lives so closely bound as ours could 
 never wholly be apart again. I do not think 
 they can be, either I feel that still though 
 it is getting to be years since I saw his face. 
 He gave me a long, long look as he said 
 good-bye. " We will meet in England, dear," 
 he said. He had never called me dear be- 
 fore. I remembered that all the way home, 
 and again and again in my heart listened to 
 the tone of his voice as he said it all the 
 way home, the way that took me farther and 
 farther from him, and from the happiest days 
 of my whole life. In some frightened way I 
 knew then what had happened to me, knew 
 that I loved him, that he was life of my life 
 as he is still, Nell, and will be always, 
 bitter or sweet, greatest pain or greatest joy, 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 115 
 
 but still very life of life till death draws down 
 the curtain and the lights are all put out. 
 
 Oh, Nell, what a sentimental fool I am, 
 and how I love him even now save when I 
 hate and loathe and scorn him ! 
 
 You shall have the rest, but not to-day. 
 ; It is more difficult to explain to excuse. 
 
 Jack often speaks of you, dear. I wish 
 you could come for a bit and stay with us. 
 
 MADGE. 
 
X 
 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 Saturday. 
 ,ES, I will go on, dear Nell. 
 
 Mark wrote constantly from 
 Malta. I only lived from letter 
 to letter, though there were no 
 protestations in them, no words 
 of endearment ; they might have been sent 
 to a sister, or to any friend he knew well. 
 Yet the morning that brought me one made 
 the whole day a festival. How well James 
 Harrison has been avenged if he did but 
 know it ! 
 
 At first John was curious about Mark's 
 letters, but when he had seen one or two he 
 was satisfied. He did not suspect a love 
 affair because a man and woman were mod- 
 erately intimate. From his point of view, 
 too, Mark was a sort of other brother to me, 
 and that he might be anything else from 
 mine did not occur to him after his sus- 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN Ii; 
 
 picions at Malta had passed. Besides, for 
 all his cleverness, John is very simple, and 
 never suspects people of living lives of which 
 they give no account to those immediately 
 about them ; and this is the key to his con- 
 duct throughout. 
 
 In October, Mark came back, and then we 
 had things all our own way. He had deter- 
 mined to give up most of his illustrating, to 
 take a studio, and do serious work. There 
 were many historical subjects he wanted to 
 paint. His pictures always had historical 
 or literary, but never a sentimental interest. 
 This was, I think, because the last would 
 have given a certain importance to women, 
 and he looked on women as an inferior type 
 of humanity, not worth the serious attention 
 often given them. I told you this in my 
 last letter, and I want to impress it upon 
 you, for I think it explains him, and per- 
 haps accounts for his conduct to me. He 
 is very passionate, and cannot help being 
 attracted by freshness and prettiness, but of 
 higher love for a woman he is incapable. 
 He liked me because I was pretty, and 
 twenty. When the effect of that had worn 
 off he left me. He would talk of outside 
 things with me, but nothing I said regarding 
 them, or that any woman said, had weight 
 
Il8 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 with him. He cannot feel it possible that 
 women ever really influence the intellectual 
 lives of men, though he thinks it well that 
 they should know how to talk a certain 
 amount of educated small talk it makes 
 them more amusing while their charm lasts. 
 Still, talk as well as they will, there is no 
 opinion they express on which he does not 
 think man should firmly put his foot in the 
 long run. For man is woman's master, and 
 it is only while she is new and fresh to him 
 that she is to be humored, to have her ways 
 and whims considered, to be flattered and 
 caressed. She is of no account at all after- 
 wards ; she may be allowed to live in the 
 world, but that is all. This is the man I 
 have loved, Nell ; the man for whom I have 
 spoiled my life, and made most things on 
 which a woman builds her dearest hopes 
 impossible. 
 
 But to go on. Mark came back and took 
 a studio. It belonged to a cousin of his, 
 Mrs. Berry, a widow with grown-up children ; 
 it was at the end of a long garden, away 
 from the house in which she lived, and had 
 a separate entrance at the back, so that his 
 comings and goings and visitors were quite 
 unknown to her. He would not have taken 
 it had it been otherwise ; for he hated being 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 119 
 
 commented on in any way. He disliked 
 relations, too, and told me once that it did 
 not "do to be intimate with them, they al- 
 ways interfered with you." 
 
 The Berrys were kindly people, generally 
 anxious about money matters; and Mrs. 
 Berry always had in her mind the placing 
 out in the world of her many sons, for whom 
 Mark had a sort of secret contempt, chiefly 
 because they were so tall and pale and 
 speechless. The worst of them all was that 
 they thought it showed discrimination of 
 character to criticise people, finding a mod- 
 erate amount of fault, so that while you were 
 with them you always had the feeling that 
 you would be discussed when you had gone. 
 Mark had once lived with them, and knew 
 them well. He had no other relations, I 
 think; perhaps this was why John and he 
 drew so close as boys, and when they were 
 both men the sentiment of youth kept them 
 together. There was little else in common 
 between them, though it was years before 
 they realized this. 
 
 I shall never forget the happy morning 
 when Mark came back. He came to us the 
 very hour he arrived. It was breakfast-time, 
 and John was at home, so he did not talk 
 much to me, but the look in his eyes was 
 
120 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 enough, and the tone in which he said, " And 
 Madge ?" when he let go John's hand to 
 grasp mine, made my heart leap for joy. 
 He was handsomer than ever, full of life and 
 fun ; no words could describe his attraction. 
 You remember what he was in India, and 
 can surely understand my infatuation. There 
 was about him a daring, a strength, a gener- 
 osity in unexpected ways, a certain happy, 
 careless courtesy that carried all before him. 
 It maddens me to think of him. Sometimes 
 I feel that he is that he must be everything 
 good and true and manly. Perhaps there 
 was in my nature that which brought out all 
 the worst possibilities in his ; or he may have 
 misconstrued something I said and did, and 
 judged me by it ; or perhaps the Berrys, whom 
 I knew well later on, unwittingly made re- 
 marks that gave him a wrong conception of 
 me; and yet he knew me long before they 
 did. 
 
 He was in wonderful spirits, full of his 
 studio, of pictures he was going to paint, of 
 books we must both read, of John's work, of 
 politics, of everything that was going on in 
 the world. That was a part of his great 
 charm, he was so thoroughly alive, right 
 down to his finger-tips, for all his air of indo- 
 lence and leisure. He seemed to know every- 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 121 
 
 thing that was. in the air long before others 
 talked of it ; I used to look at him some- 
 times, and think that he was a part of the 
 universe, and in touch with the whole of it. 
 
 You will wonder at my alternations of 
 feeling, but by them you must measure alike 
 the joy he gave me and the sorrow and bit- 
 terness he cost me. In that clear, gray Oc- 
 tober that brought him back, the world was 
 filled with a new life that intoxicated me, till 
 I hardly knew right from wrong, or black 
 from white, or anything at all save that every 
 day I saw his face and heard his voice ; to- 
 day, and to-morrow, and for endless to-mor- 
 rows, I thought the story would be the same. 
 
 " I shall take Madge in hand," he said to 
 John ; " she draws very well, and would paint 
 well, too, if she would only work. We must 
 make her." 
 
 At first he tried to come only when John 
 was at home, but this could not go on if we 
 were to work together ; for John had an office 
 at Westminster, and went to it regularly an 
 hour after breakfast, and did not return till 
 nearly dinner-time. All day long I was left 
 to my own devices, and there was no one 
 (except Aunt Maria, who was at Daffodil) to 
 tell me the conventional things I ought to 
 do, the unconventional things I ought not to 
 
122 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 do, lest the world should put a false con- 
 struction on them. 
 
 Well, Mark used to come in the morning 
 after John had gone, and we went into the 
 little box-room I called my study, to paint, 
 and there was no one to disturb us. I do 
 not think John realized how much we were 
 together I never told him ; something kept 
 my lips closed, though, mind, had it occurred 
 to him to ask me, I should have told him. 
 I do not suppose he would have objected, 
 for he was devoted to Mark. 
 
 We really worked at first ; I think Mark 
 had made up his mind not to make love to 
 me, so that no idea of wrong entered my 
 head, and I gave myself up to the happiness 
 of life. But gradually things altered; we 
 might be friends and artists, but we were 
 man and woman, too, and it was not given to 
 us to be different from the rest of humanity. 
 Do people, when they are young and full of 
 life and happiness, with most of the world's 
 unknowns before them, go on spending long 
 days together week after week for merely 
 work and talk of work ? Not often. 
 
 I think we struggled with Fate or Nature 
 call it which you will and tried to keep 
 up the old relations as long as possible. We 
 tried to work steadily, but the brushes were 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 123 
 
 too often laid aside ; we had so much to say. 
 We talked of ourselves; we were jealous and 
 curious ; we looked at each other long and 
 often, and then were half ashamed; our 
 hands met, and all our souls knew it. The 
 tone of his voice, the sound of his step, the 
 sight of his face, how much they were to me ! 
 I counted the last moments before he came, 
 they were so long in going ; the last before 
 he went, they seemed to fly while we lingered 
 over our parting words. It could not go on 
 long it did not. 
 
 " It is very difficult to paint in this little 
 hole," he said one afternoon, when we went 
 back to our work after lunch ; " we want a 
 studio to ourselves," he laughed. 
 
 "How lovely it would be," I answered. 
 " I have never even been inside a real studio. 
 I should so like to see one." 
 
 " To see a studio ? Put on your things 
 and come and see mine ; it is better than a 
 box-room. I have wanted you to see it; we 
 shall never work here." 
 
 I hesitated. 
 
 " Make haste," he said. " Then perhaps 
 we shall be able to do a little there before 
 it is too dark." 
 
 " Do you think I really might go ?" I asked, 
 doubtfully. 
 
124 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 "Of course," he answered; "why not? 
 Every one goes to studios. Besides, it is in 
 the Berrys' garden. We will have tea with 
 them before we leave." 
 
 That set all doubts at rest. I went to put 
 on my hat, and started at my own face when 
 I beheld it in the glass. Love had changed 
 it till it was almost beautiful. He thought so, 
 too ; I could see that when he looked silently 
 and half-wonderingly at me in the one mo- 
 ment before we left the house. Perhaps he 
 divined in that moment all that was going 
 on in my heart. What did it matter ? Had 
 he not kissed me long since under the 
 mango -trees at Poona? Would he have 
 done it had he not loved me, had he not 
 known that I loved him back? All things 
 are not said in words, some are told in a 
 language that has no sound for ears to hear. 
 
 We jumped into a hansom and drove to 
 Grove End Road. I could have sung for 
 joy as I went along, but that all the time I 
 listened to what? Nellie, do you know 
 how the rattle of a train, the wheels of a 
 carriage, the thud-thud of a steamer will 
 sometimes keep time to a song that no lips 
 sing, only your own joyous heart on some 
 few blessed times in your life ? As we went 
 along every sound kept time to a silent song 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 12$ 
 
 in my heart : " Happiest in the world, there's 
 no one like him, no one at all happiest in 
 the world," the wheels ground out as they 
 went round and round. I looked at the 
 people we passed, and they looked back at 
 me as if they knew how happy I was, as if 
 they knew that I was with my lover. We 
 sped on swiftly. What a gay and happy 
 place was London ; even on a drear October 
 day like that the streets were full of busy 
 people, the very air seemed full of life. How 
 wonderful it was to be a girl, to be beside 
 Mark and going to his studio ! Oh, my dear, 
 my dear, who was all the world to me ! I 
 looked at his face shyly, and he laughed 
 for happiness, it seemed ; did he, too, catch 
 the burden of the song that all things sang 
 to me ? On we whirled ; gray was the sky 
 overhead, sombre the dress of the passing 
 folk, brown the London roads, ugly the cabs 
 and omnibuses, heavy and slow the lumber- 
 ing carts ; what did it matter, for at last I 
 tasted the draught of joy that love held to 
 my lips tasted, and all things were made 
 beautiful ? I was so proud of loving him, 
 thankful that it was my lot to do so, for 
 was he not best in the world, wisest and 
 cleverest ? And good ? Oh yes, good, too ; 
 he was too grand, too wonderful altogther in 
 
126 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 my girlish eyes to be anything else. Fool 
 that I was, dear Nell, for I knew nothing. 
 To him all things were known, to me all un- 
 known. I was asleep, but he was awake. 
 Sometimes I wonder if secretly that day he 
 scorned me because I loved him, because I 
 trusted him. Trusted him ! I would have 
 staked my life that every word he said was 
 true, and every look an index of his heart. 
 It never once entered into my mind how 
 should it ? that all the time a self of which 
 I knew nothing, thought and drew conclu- 
 sions and managed him a self totally dif- 
 ferent from the one he showed me. 
 
 We stopped at last by a garden door be- 
 hind Grove End Road not at the Berrys' 
 house, but at the studio at the far end of 
 their garden. We could not see the house 
 for the thick trees between. I jumped down 
 quickly, the excitement was flashing from 
 my eyes and burning on my cheeks, and 
 made me almost dumb. It seemed as if I 
 was about to pass into his life for a space, 
 to see his work, the surroundings among 
 which he spent his time, the "things that 
 suggested thoughts to him and made him 
 work, made him known to the great world 
 beyond our two selves the world that would 
 one day speak of him as a master. What 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 127 
 
 an idealist is a girl, dear Nellie, and what 
 strange dreams are sometimes dreamed be- 
 hind the most innocent eyes in the world ! 
 
 Mark paid the cabman, and still with the 
 smile on his lips, and the happy look that 
 had come into his eyes since we started, 
 fumbled in his pocket for a key with which 
 he opened the door of the studio. I entered, 
 but stopped on the threshold. All was si- 
 lent, dim, and cold waiting for us. 
 
 " Come in," he said, pulling back a blind 
 that had been drawn over the high north 
 window. But still I waited by the door. 
 Everything looked cold and comfortless, as 
 though the whole place had been asleep and 
 did not realize yet that it was time to awake 
 that we had come, and there was some 
 life to live through ; a chapter in two peo- 
 ple's histories for the walls to listen to and 
 look down upon. He stood for a minute 
 watching the effect of the keen gray light 
 coming in, then turned to me with a sigh of 
 relief : " I have always wanted to see you 
 here," he said, " and now you have come. 
 But why do you stand there, my child ?" I 
 shivered with cold, with the silence, and 
 could not speak. He came over to me ; he 
 took my hand and led me farther into the 
 room. " I have often thought how well we 
 
128 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 could paint here. In future it shall be our 
 workshop, and we will astonish the world, 
 eh ?" His voice was a lover's voice, my 
 heart knew that well enough, and in its tone 
 there was a confidence and tenderness that 
 might well have set my fears at rest. But 
 still I was half afraid of what ? God knew, 
 perhaps, but I did not. 
 
 You will wonder that I remember it all so 
 keenly, but I do not think that I forget one 
 word he ever said to me. Even his letters 
 stay with me ; I burned them long ago in bit- 
 ter, passionate scorn, but I could say them 
 all by heart. 
 
 With my hand in his, as if to gain cour- 
 age, I looked round the studio again ; it was 
 large and picturesque, and full of the prop- 
 erties in which painters delight : armor and 
 draperies, old cabinets and strange-shaped 
 pots, tall palms and low, roomy bamboo 
 chairs. He followed my gaze. " These frip- 
 peries are not mine," he explained ; " they^ 
 belong to a man who had the studio before 
 me. He is abroad now, but I told him I 
 would take charge of them till he came 
 back." I shivered again, with the gloom 
 and cold, perhaps, and with a certain sense 
 of strangeness. " Why, you are cold," he 
 said, " you are shivering ; wait, we will soon 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 129 
 
 alter that ;" and he went to a little ebony 
 elephant on a shelf, and, taking a match 
 from its back, set light to the wood-fire ready 
 laid in the big fireplace. Then he drew up 
 two of the low chairs, that brought back 
 with a rush memories of your room at Poona, 
 and put them before the logs that almost 
 in a minute were blazing. "Let us sit 
 down and get warm," he said; "old ship's 
 wood always burns well and crackles and 
 makes blue flame. Don't you like watch- 
 ing it?" 
 
 "Yes," I answered; "I like to watch it 
 sometimes " 
 
 "It makes one think of great seas and 
 storms and drowning crews on helpless 
 ships," he went on. Then suddenly he ask- 
 ed, "And what do you think of the studio ?" 
 
 " It is lovely, but" 
 
 " Then let us sit and talk while the fire 
 blazes you are cold enough." 
 
 " But we came to work," I pleaded ; " let 
 us begin before the daylight goes." 
 
 " We shall have lots of time to work here," 
 he answered; "we can come every day if 
 we like ; sit down now and let us take quiet- 
 ly our first hour here together." 
 
 Helplessly I did as he told me. He 
 walked up and down, looking at the room 
 
130 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 and then at me. I knew vaguely, as I sat 
 there with my hands crossed on my lap and 
 my head resting against the great silk cush- 
 ion on the chair-back, that he was going to 
 make, love to me, and my heart stood still, 
 and I was afraid of what ? Of some un- 
 known wrong that against my own will I 
 seemed to be doing. But I was not wholly 
 passive ; in a blindfold way I struggled with 
 the fate that seemed to be bearing down on 
 me. 
 
 " This room suits you," he said ; " it makes 
 just the right background for your coloring. 
 You look as you did that night at Poona 
 in the garden. Do you remember our quar- 
 rel, and how we made it up ?" 
 
 I was indignant with him for reminding 
 me of it. 
 
 " Please let us talk of something else let 
 us talk about the studio and what we will 
 paint here ?" 
 
 "We need not settle that now; we can 
 paint together all our lives." He spoke 
 as if we were never going to be apart. Do 
 you wonder that gradually I let go, and for- 
 got all things but my love for him, and his 
 his desire to be with me that I mistook 
 for love ? 
 
 " All our lives ?" I said, vaguely. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 131 
 
 " Why, yes, my child ; so we can afford 
 to watch the ship-wood crackle now." 
 
 But still I could not shake off the feeling 
 that it was wrong to be there, and somehow 
 I felt like a prisoner. Suddenly he stopped 
 behind my chair, he leaned down, I knew that 
 he was softly touching my hair with his lips. 
 That roused me ; quickly I stood up, and fac- 
 ing him took my courage into my two hands. 
 
 " Mark," I cried, " let us go home, or let 
 us go to the house and see Mrs. Berry. No 
 one knows that I am here John does not 
 here all alone with you, and as it were in 
 secret. It feels wrong, I don't know why, 
 but it does." I finished almost piteously, 
 for the expression on his face sent a chill 
 to my heart. It had grown cold and hard 
 and surprised. All my life was bound up 
 in him I would have died rather than make 
 him angry. I could have borne anything 
 better than his coldness. 
 
 " Why is it wrong ?" he asked. 
 
 " I don't know, but I feel that it is." 
 
 "Don't be silly, dear," he said, gently. 
 " How can it be wrong to be here with me ? 
 You are not a child ; you are a woman, and 
 we know what we are about. Why should 
 we not be here together ? two people who 
 like each other." 
 
132 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 " I don't know," I faltered again. 
 
 " Neither do I," he answered, and put his 
 arms round me lovingly, but I recoiled al- 
 most with a shudder. 
 
 " Ah ! you do not care for me," he said, 
 scornfully; "if you did you would not shrink 
 from me." 
 
 " Oh ! but if Jack knew" 
 
 " But Jack does not know," he said ; 
 " don't be silly, Madge ; I hate women who 
 are forever thinking of the proprieties ; your 
 cautious woman, always wondering which 
 is right and which is wrong and doing nei- 
 ther, is contemptible." He had not let go, 
 but he held me a little way off and looked 
 steadily and coldly in my face. The hot 
 tears came to my eyes and burned them. 
 
 " You are cruel to me ; you will kill me," 
 I almost sobbed, "if you say such wicked 
 things." 
 
 "You provoke them. You are not like 
 the girl I knew in India." 
 
 " I am the same, Mark. I am the same," 
 I cried. 
 
 " I think she cared for me," he said, in a 
 low voice ; " you do not ?" 
 
 " I do," I gasped, " I do." 
 
 " Not much ?" he said, curiously, in the 
 same cold tone. Looking back, I think he 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 133 
 
 was deliberately informing himself of my 
 feeling towards him though he must have 
 known it well before while he took care 
 not to compromise himself. " Not much ?" 
 he repeated. I clasped my hands ; I could 
 not endure his manner any longer ; a strange 
 despair settled on my heart ; a dread lest he 
 should suddenly hate me unless he knew 
 the truth. 
 
 "Oh yes," I said; "much, much I care 
 dreadfully," and then for a little while there 
 swept over me the rest and perfect happi- 
 ness that follows always, I suppose, on a 
 confession like that. With those words said, 
 was not I at his mercy, Nell ? I was, and 
 he knew it ; but though he kissed me a hun- 
 dred times he did not say that he loved me ; 
 he did not ask me to marry him. Yet I was 
 his friend's sister ; he had known me since 
 I was a little girl, and unknowingly I had 
 felt that old acquaintance in itself a safe- 
 guard, a reason why, no matter into what 
 new phases of emotion he might lead me, 
 he would let me do no real wrong. Was 
 this so strange, dear Nell? Was I so old 
 and worldly-wise that I should know already 
 that a woman should forever be on the de- 
 fensive, ever sophisticated, ever holding back 
 and hiding what she feels, though a man 
 
134 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 may say and do what he will and scarce be 
 blamed at all. For man is strong, and so 
 shall go scot-free ; but woman is weak, and 
 well shall man scout and scorn her if just 
 for love of him she shows her weakness. 
 So is the game played in this strange world 
 of ours. 
 
 We sat by the wood-fire till the twilight 
 came, till the twilight went and the dark- 
 ness gathered; he with his chair close to 
 mine, my lover one minute, my half-scornful 
 master the next. At last the fire died out, 
 the air grew chill, and the striking of the 
 quaint old clock in the corner vibrated as 
 though the room were empty, as though it 
 felt the stillness. The day had come to an 
 end ; we had sat beside the fire all the 
 hours through ; they had slipped away as 
 our dreams slip back when at last we face 
 the waking-time. 
 
 " It is too late to see Clara Berry to-day, 
 but we shall have plenty of time for that," he 
 said ; and then we walked home in silence, I, 
 shy and afraid, and he I do not know. 
 
 But there was nothing to tell John, no 
 engagement, no confession ; for it was not 
 possible to tell him that my whole heart was 
 given to a man who had not even said he 
 loved me. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 135 
 
 That was but the beginning of many days 
 long days at the studio, long walks to and 
 fro, and talks by the fire as the light grew 
 gray and the wood burned and crackled 
 wood that had seen shipwreck once, and 
 now blazed out and left but darkness be- 
 hind as I walked through my Eden towards 
 the gate that leads outward. 
 
 We were lovers in all but name what 
 did the name matter ? He loved me, surely, 
 I thought ; would he spend his life with me 
 thus ; would he caress me and scold me and 
 forgive me for we had many foolish quar- 
 rels and makings up ; would he make me so 
 happy and so miserable, would he take my 
 whole life into his hands if he. did not love 
 me ? But he never once said it. I thought 
 the omission only an accident, and due to 
 the fact that he was not given to making 
 protestations. I know now that it was cold 
 wisdom. He did not mind putting shame 
 and reproach into a girl's life, but he was 
 careful not to commit himself. 
 
 How you must despise me, Nell; and the 
 story is not finished yet. Perhaps even 
 though you despise me you will love me a 
 little still. God grant you may, dear, and 
 that with you at least my soul may walk in 
 the light of day. MADGE. 
 
XI 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 [OW glad I shall be when I have 
 brought things up to date ! It 
 is so long since the days I am 
 telling you of, and relating them 
 humiliates me more than I can 
 bear. Since those days, too, I have changed. 
 I have won my spurs in the world. I know 
 my power, and if I could only forget I could 
 be content. " Love is not all," I say to my- 
 self in these days ; there are many things 
 besides ambition, for instance, and power. 
 To help to make the wide world's history, 
 to see the beginnings of great movements, 
 the birth of new ideas, the gradual develop- 
 ment of some strange theory that shall un- 
 hinge doors that have been closed for cen- 
 turies, and set them open wide are not 
 these better than love ? Love is for the in- 
 dividual a short and fevered happiness for 
 one, at most for two ; is it not foolish to 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 137 
 
 stake our lives upon it ? Other things may 
 affect the whole world, but love is just for 
 our own hearts. Be it what it will, love is 
 for me no more it is forever beyond my 
 reach, and so I cultivate fine feelings and 
 big thoughts, and try to find some satisfac- 
 tion in them. It is a trick known to many 
 of us, though each one, as he learns it, tries 
 to hide its trickiness and to pass it off al- 
 most as a religion. Nell, I have played my 
 part so well these last years that I pass for 
 a cold and rather clever woman, ambitious 
 and severe, wholly above emotional phases. 
 Lovers come to me still, but they are half 
 afraid of me ; though middle-aged men like 
 Sir Noel Franks consider me favorably. I 
 sit alone, sometimes, and laugh in my sleeve 
 or cry in it it matters little which when 
 I think of my present pose and of the days 
 that I remember. 
 
 But to my story. Dear, this is like a 
 novel for you. Each letter is an instalment. 
 I shall put " to be continued " at the end of 
 this if I do not finish to-day. 
 
 Well. 
 
 At the end of the winter, of which I told 
 you in my last, Janet came to live with us. 
 She was our dear mother's maid years and 
 years ago, before we were confided to Aunt 
 
138 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 Maria's care at Daffodil ; and being a widow, 
 came back to us again, and has been with us 
 ever since. She looks after everything here, 
 and is the great comfort of my life. She 
 has known us both ever since we were born, 
 and is more like a dear friend than a serv- 
 ant. John was glad to give her a home. 
 He thought she would take care of me ; and 
 she has done so. Soon after she came, John 
 was asked to go to Canada for some months. 
 He was to be away from April to October, 
 and then for the first time he seemed to 
 consider my position and to realize that at 
 one-and-twenty I was not old enough to live 
 alone in London with only Janet to look 
 after me, and with Mark for my guide, 
 philosopher, and friend. He knew I should 
 hate going to Daffodil, and did not venture 
 to propose it. One day he saw an adver- 
 tisement of a tiny cottage to be let on the 
 river, near Cookham. It was the very 
 thing, he declared, when he came back from 
 seeing it ; there was a boat, a summer-house, 
 a long garden, and room enough in the 
 house for me and Janet, and one servant 
 besides. 
 
 " You can be happy there, dear Madge," 
 he added; "you will have your books to 
 read and the garden for a studio." 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 139 
 
 " May Mark come ?" I asked, for my heart 
 was sinking. 
 
 " He may go down and see you for a few 
 hours in the course of the summer," he 
 answered ; " but he must not go and stay 
 with you, remember ; after all, Mark is no 
 relation He stopped and looked at me, 
 and I knew that it was because my face 
 was turning white with dismay. Even then, 
 though I did not know it, I felt the cruelty 
 of Mark's conduct as I stood tongue-tied 
 before my brother. "Why, Madge, dear, 
 what is the matter ? you are quite pale, and 
 there are tears in your eyes." 
 
 "Let me stay in town," I pleaded; "I 
 don't want to go away. It will be so lone- 
 ly." 
 
 " You shall stay if you will have some of 
 the Daffodil people with you." That was 
 enough. I agreed to the cottage. 
 
 So John went to Canada, but first he had 
 a long talk with Mark. I do not know 
 what it was about, but for some time after- 
 wards the latter was almost distant. I was 
 distracted he did not love me any more ; it 
 was all over, and I should break my heart. 
 I only lived for him in those wild days he 
 was all my world. I think of it now some- 
 times when I look at John's dear face and 
 
140 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 see the furrows that work and thought have 
 left there, and hate myself for my own 
 selfishness. 
 
 John in his simplicity thought he had put 
 some distance between Mark and me. He 
 had only made things more easy. Janet and 
 I in that little house, with the wood in front 
 and the river behind, the old-fashioned gar- 
 den, the summer-house, the boat in its little 
 shelter, a basket-carriage at the inn close by 
 is not the rest easy to imagine ? 
 
 At first he wrote regularly twice a week. 
 I wrote to him every day, but every other 
 letter I burned. I longed to see him, to ask 
 him to come, but dared not, and he said no 
 word. The hours dragged by without him 
 they were so empty, so long, so useless, the 
 river was chilly, the roads were dreary. I 
 could not work, for nothing in the world was 
 worth painting ; or read, for my thoughts 
 would not fasten on a book. 
 
 One afternoon I sat in the summer-house 
 rolled in a shawl (it was cold, uncertain 
 April) listening for the postman's step. 
 Twice a day he came, and when the second 
 letters were delivered I felt as if there was 
 nothing to do but to wait as best one could 
 till the morning. I used to watch and wait 
 for a letter, Nellie, as though it fell from 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 141 
 
 heaven, bringing a message of its bliss, and 
 the sight of one of the long envelopes with 
 the embossed stamp that Mark always used 
 sent a thrill of joy through me that was 
 almost pain. 
 
 Presently, instead of the postman's step 
 there was another. I knew it well enough, 
 and started to my feet. Of course it was 
 Mark. He laughed for joy when he saw the 
 color come to my face. 
 
 "I have brought my things," he said, 
 " and am going to stay at the Swan for a 
 bit ; I thought we might do some work to- 
 gether." I clasped my hands and could 
 not speak for a moment ; there was no need 
 he understood. 
 
 And then in the days that followed I felt 
 as if the whole universe sang for joy just 
 because we were together ; just because of 
 my great happiness. It did not seem possi- 
 ble that the world could any longer hold 
 sorrow or pain. And the cities and the peo- 
 ples they had all vanished, gone to the 
 earth's far corners or on to heaven perhaps : 
 but we were there among the trees, beside 
 the river, free and alone in the beautiful 
 world together. Together together all 
 through the bright spring days, all through 
 the sultry summer, till the first cold winds 
 
142 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 of autumn came and swept before them 
 many things. I shiver as I remember these 
 last. But the dusky evenings, the rustle of 
 the leaves, the notes of the birds hidden 
 among them notes that seemed to come 
 from their soft throats that were as full of 
 joy as was my heart the ripple of the 
 river, the yellow of the marigold, the scent 
 of the roses, how they all come back to 
 me as I sit here and write at the end of the 
 story. 
 
 We spent whole days upon the river, 
 starting in the early morning, taking our 
 luncheon with us, putting up under a tree to 
 eat it or landing on some lonely little island 
 covered with trees and short, thick under- 
 wood. We made a picnic of our own, the 
 chicken and the fruit and the cakes that 
 Janet had put up for us, the claret and the 
 cold black coffee. How like Eden it was ! 
 Eden that had heard just enough of the 
 outside world to gather in its comforts. 
 
 After we had finished our gay little meal 
 he smoked, and we sat close together watch- 
 ing our boat tied up, and talked and dawdled 
 through the summer hours, making plans for 
 the future or speculating idly how we would 
 have a house-boat here or a wigwam there, 
 and forever keep away from the haunts of 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 143 
 
 men. Did it seem as if we should ever be 
 apart ? 
 
 Once, nay, many times, I said : " Oh, if 
 Jack only knew that you were here, then I 
 could be content. Now I am afraid of his 
 being angry ;" but he always answered 
 impatiently : 
 
 " What nonsense ; you have a right to do 
 as you like ; besides, why should John be 
 angry ?" Or I tried to make our relations 
 more formal, and would not let him walk 
 through the woods with his arm round my 
 waist, but he only looked at me in surprise. 
 
 "Two people who like each other and 
 are together, surely there is nothing wrong 
 in this ?" he said. 
 
 That was the nearest approach to a decla- 
 ration he ever made me, and yet in every- 
 thing but words he was my devoted lover. 
 Do you wonder that I was lulled, that I gave 
 up my whole life to him without disguise and 
 trusted him absolutely ? If the question had 
 arisen I should have said, " Of course he 
 loves me." There was no necessity for 
 words. 
 
 Nell, how cruel it was, for he knew, though 
 I did not. He was careful and cautious, 
 though I had thrown all things save trust in 
 him to the winds. Why did I love him ? 
 
144 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 Why do I ? for I do. I realize that as I 
 write to you, though I am cold and wide- 
 eyed, too, and can see him clearly, his cow- 
 ardice and selfishness, his absolute want of 
 generosity that would let him consider no 
 point of view but his own, no human being 
 but himself. I understand him well enough 
 now, the side of his nature that made him 
 come after me, the fascination that my youth 
 was to him, and perhaps that only; I see 
 without flinching the whole of the madden- 
 ing degradation. He never did one gener- 
 ous thing towards me ; he never sent me one 
 wholly generous letter, for in every one 
 there was an air of restraint, of care not to 
 commit himself, of holding back. He cared 
 for nothing concerning me, but only for his 
 own pleasure and fancy for the moment. And 
 yet the fact remains that I loved him and glo- 
 rified him and lived only to him and for him. 
 He was not wholly kind to me, even in 
 
 / that mad summer in which we were never 
 
 apart. He lectured and scolded and sulked 
 
 S with me ; we had many foolish quarrels, over 
 
 / which I nearly broke my heart, and when 
 we made them up it was all my doing and 
 none of his. If I had been in the right, it 
 made no difference. He was not capable 
 of owning when he was wrong. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 145 
 
 I am very hard upon him, rrr, dear old 
 love whom I loved more than my own soul ; 
 but, as I said before, you must measure my 
 suffering by my bitterness, and perhaps my 
 love, too. I have been beaten by fate or my 
 own folly, which you will, till I am so hard 
 that sometimes I feel like a stone. 
 
 It was Janet who first grew uneasy at the 
 state of things. 
 
 "Dear Miss Madge," she said, in her 
 country way, " and when is it that you and 
 Mr. Mark are going to marry ?" 
 
 My heart stood still ; instinctively I dread- 
 ed being questioned. 
 
 "I don't know, Janet. You must not talk 
 of that." 
 
 " But he's asked y6u to marry him, surely? 
 He's been here and with you all day long, 
 weeks in and weeks out. He's asked you 
 to marry, surely ?" 
 
 She looked at me severely. 
 
 "No, Janet. He hasn't asked me. I 
 don't think he wants to marry." 
 
 Janet knew our mother before we were 
 born. She had nursed us as babies. I 
 could not dispute her right to question me. 
 
 " If he doesn't want to marry you, Miss 
 Madge, dear, he oughtn't to want to be 
 with you day after day. It's taking your 
 
146 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 heart and maybe your good name and life 
 away." 
 
 "Oh no, Janet; oh no," I cried, "he likes 
 being with me. He may not want to marry 
 yet, but he likes being with me." 
 
 " Is he fond of you ?" she asked, her kind- 
 ly old face turning anxiously towards me. 
 
 Again I faltered, and I saw vaguely how 
 careful he had been. 
 
 " I think so, Janet. He would not be al- 
 ways with me if he did not care." 
 
 " Has he told you so ? Has he told you 
 that he loves you, dear heart ?" 
 
 For a minute I looked at her in silence, 
 feeling as though a door had been suddenly 
 opened and I had looked out at a dark night 
 and saw no light ahead, no star above, yet 
 knew that I might have to go forth whith- 
 er ? But I shook off my fear, though my 
 lips trembled as I answered : 
 
 "No no, Janet. He hasn't said it 
 words are not necessary." 
 
 " Yes, dearie, they are ; and if he's an 
 honest man, he'll tell you that he loves you, 
 and if he's not, better let him go. He makes 
 love to you, like enough, takes you in his 
 arms, and kisses you ?" 
 
 I was silent, for I could not contradict 
 her. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 147 
 
 " No honest man does that unless he loves 
 a girl, Miss Madge," she added, sternly. 
 
 "But he has known me all my life, Janet," 
 I pleaded. 
 
 "All the more reason that he should be 
 honest towards you. Make no mistake, 
 women trust and men deceive. Does he 
 know you love him, my dearie ?" she asked, 
 softly, for her kindly heart ached sorely for 
 me. 
 
 " Yes, Janet " and I burst into tears 
 "he knows that I love him, for I betrayed 
 it long ago at the studio, before we left Lon- 
 don." 
 
 She put her arms round me, and drew me 
 on her lap as she used to do when I was a 
 tiny child and cried because my mother did 
 not come back to us. 
 
 "I have loved him ever since I was in 
 India, Janet." 
 
 " And did he make love to you there ?" 
 
 "Yes," I whispered. 
 
 " And kept a guard on his tongue and a 
 lock on his lips all the time ; never talked 
 of marriage, never said out once like a man 
 that he loved you never once, my darling ?" 
 
 I fell to considering his words day after 
 day, and his letters ; there had been scores 
 of them, but not one of them contained the 
 
148 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 words for which my whole soul awoke to 
 hunger. 
 
 " No, Janet, no;" then a flash of light broke 
 on me. " But he has often said we will do 
 this and we will do that; and only a little 
 while ago, when I was afraid we were doing 
 wrong in being together so much, he said, 
 ' What nonsense, two people who like each 
 other.' That shows he means, he cares 
 he is not one to make protestations they 
 are not like him ; he would think them be- 
 neath him." 
 
 "No man thinks it beneath him to be 
 honorable, dearie." 
 
 " Oh, but he is honorable," I cried, in de- 
 spair. 
 
 " Don't see him any more, Miss Madge." 
 
 " But I must, Janet." 
 
 " Don't let him be with you all day; don't 
 let him make love to you till he can find a 
 tongue to speak, and if he can't, let him go." 
 
 "I can't let him go, Janet I can't," I 
 whispered. " Don't be cruel to me. I must 
 trust him I will. This is August, the sum- 
 mer will soon be over, perhaps he will speak 
 before we leave here. He may think it isn't 
 necessary. He does, I know he does. He 
 thinks I understand without words, just or- 
 dinary words, they are for ordinary people, 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 149 
 
 not for him. Don't interfere, dear Janet, 
 let it go on to the end of our time here. 
 Let me stand or fall, all my hope and hap- 
 piness, by him." 
 
 "As many a poor soul has by a man be- 
 fore, and will in days to come," said Janet, 
 rocking herself. 
 
 " If he fails me I can die," I pleaded. 
 
 " It's easy to talk of dying, but life clings," 
 poor Janet answered, brushing the tears from 
 her eyes. " But it is only a little while lon- 
 ger that we have to stay here just to the 
 end of September. Let him have his chance; 
 but hold back, dear : as woman holds off, 
 man follows ; as she comes forward, he falls 
 back ; remember that, Miss Madge." 
 
 From that time I was awake, and longed, 
 with a longing that was madness, to hear 
 him say that he loved me. I tried to hold 
 back, as Janet told me, to be more distant, 
 more formal, colder ; but how could I after 
 the terms we had been on ? Besides, in 
 spite of my former engagement to James 
 Harrison, and my Indian experiences, I was 
 unsophisticated still ; and as soon as I was 
 out of earshot again, and had been five min- 
 utes with Mark, I trusted him as much, as 
 blindly, as absolutely as ever. If he were 
 not worth loving, it would be better to find 
 
150 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 it out, and let the knowledge kill me. Al- 
 ready I think I divined the sorrow that was 
 before me, if he had only been making me 
 his plaything, the shame and remorse I 
 should suffer, the boundless scorn that, later 
 on, when the pain had at last burned out, 
 would consume me, and leave but the ashes 
 of my love for him. 
 
 He seemed to know that something had 
 happened. He was waiting to take me on 
 the river ; we met by the gate ; there was a 
 look of inquiry on his face. 
 
 "Well?" he said; but I could not raise 
 my eyes. " Has anything happened ?" 
 
 " No," I answered. 
 
 We went down the wooden steps into the 
 boat and put off in silence. He pulled up 
 by the island, at which we had so often 
 landed before. 
 
 " Come," he said. " We will rest here a 
 bit." 
 
 I took his hand and stepped ashore. We 
 went along the narrow path-way that parted 
 the underwood to a grassy patch before an 
 oak-tree. 
 
 "Now tell me," he said, "for I can see 
 that something has happened. What is 
 it?" 
 
 " It is nothing," I said " nothing, only 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 1 51 
 
 that we are " But I stopped, for I could 
 not repeat what Janet had said. 
 
 " Well ?" 
 
 " It is only that I wish John knew that you 
 were here ; that we meet so often, that " 
 But I stopped, and could not go on. I was 
 afraid and ashamed. He looked at me with 
 calm surprise. 
 
 "What nonsense !" he said. "We are not 
 children ; we know what we are doing. I 
 will make it all right with John, if it is nec- 
 essary." He got up as if he were displeased. 
 " Come," he said, coldly, " perhaps we had 
 better go back." 
 
 But for answer I broke into passionate 
 tears. 
 
 " Oh, don't be angry !" I cried. " I can- 
 not bear it." 
 
 " Then why do you try to make me so ?" 
 he asked, as if he were my master. 
 
 " I never will again. I will never think 
 stupid things any more ; I will trust you 
 absolutely." 
 
 "Perhaps you had better not," he an- 
 swered, cynically. "Who knows how it 
 may end ?" 
 
 I looked at him in dismay. 
 
 "I don't understand," I faltered. As if 
 he repented, his manner changed. 
 
152 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 " Perhaps you are right in being afraid of 
 me, Madge," he said, gently. " It is a pity 
 you ever set eyes on me." 
 
 " Oh no, no !" I cried. " And afraid I 
 am not afraid, dear Mark; I am not, in- 
 deed." 
 
 As if to show that I was forgiven, he put 
 his arm through mine, and we sauntered 
 round the island, and not back to the boat, 
 as I had feared. Suddenly the words came 
 to my lips, almost without my knowing it. 
 
 " You have known me since I was a little 
 girl, Mark." 
 
 " Yes, since you were a little girl," he re- 
 peated, tenderly, and, stooping, kissed my 
 wrist ; " and in many things she is a little 
 girl still." 
 
 So that phase ended. Do you under- 
 stand it all? Him me? I would that I 
 did ; for never yet has understanding of 
 him come to this heart of mine that was 
 not mixed with pain or scorn or shame. 
 
 We went on just as we had before Janet 
 spoke to me. His manner was as tender 
 as ever, but he held himself well in hand ; 
 and though he wrung all manner of un- 
 guarded admissions from me, he made none 
 that bound him to me. 
 
 At last the summer that long, delicious 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 1 53 
 
 summer that I look back upon as the heav- 
 en of my whole life, though I did but walk 
 through it to the hell beyond came to an 
 end. He flagged towards the close ; his 
 manner grew less eager, his voice more ab- 
 stracted ; he made excuses for not coming 
 so often to the cottage, or for going long 
 walks and drives and pulls on the river. 
 Nay, there were days on which we did not 
 meet at all, and when we did we no longer 
 spent our time over driftless talk or in sweet 
 silence. 
 
 Gradually, as though they had been stud- 
 ied beforehand, there crept into his talk 
 allusions to his future and mine, as if he 
 thought of them as separate ways of my 
 some-day marriage, and of his travels. Into 
 my heart there crept an awful dread, a ques- 
 tioning, an everlasting wondering I did not 
 dare to face. 
 
 " Some day, when I am far away, and you 
 and your husband " he began one day it 
 was the last time we ever went on the river 
 together. 
 
 "Why do you talk like that?" I cried. 
 " I shall never marry never." 
 
 " Ah, that is what all women declare be- 
 forehand," he answered. But though he 
 laughed, I knew that he was watching me 
 
154 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 narrowly. It raised a little terror in my 
 heart. Were all things between us coming 
 to an end ? Oh, sooner might I lie down 
 and die. 
 
 But, day by day almost, his manner grew 
 colder, and more and more careful, a little 
 wearied, too, as though he were waiting to 
 see the play out, and would be glad when it 
 was finished. His words were fewer and 
 more distant ; and slowly, like a nightmare, 
 there crept over me the knowledge that he 
 was severing his life from mine and it 
 was so. 
 
 In late September we were to go back to 
 town, and Janet made ready. Mark went 
 a fortnight before we did. On his arrival 
 he wrote me a curt little note, and that 
 was all. 
 
 I counted the hours of our last week at 
 the cottage, longing to see John again, but 
 longing still more to see Mark to be near 
 him, to know that at any hour he might 
 come if he would, and that at any moment, 
 with the sound of his voice, all the misery 
 that possessed me might be swept away. I 
 sometimes think that my feeling for him 
 was a madness that he had made it one. 
 Oh, the carefulness of that man not to com- 
 mit himself ; the calm way in which he delib- 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 155 
 
 erately took my life into his hands, amused 
 himself with it, nursed it and moulded it, and 
 then, when he was tired of it, threw it on 
 one side with impatience and forgetfulness. 
 
 The last day of all at the cottage came, 
 and while Janet finished packing I went on 
 the river once more to the island where he 
 and I had spent so many hours together. I 
 did not tell Janet I was going there, for her 
 quiet scorn of him was more than I could 
 bear. It was strange enough to go alone. 
 I got out of the boat, and, having made it 
 fast, looked behind me stealthily, and trod 
 softly, as though I were doing some strange, 
 forbidden thing, or treading a graveyard, 
 and feared to awaken the sleepers. I went 
 towards the tree beneath which we had rest- 
 ed so often. I sat down and covered my 
 face with my hands, and gave myself up to 
 the misery that possessed me. I thought 
 over all the days we had spent together, all 
 that he had said, all that we had done from 
 that first hour in the sunshine at Bombay 
 to the last, a fortnight ago, when he had 
 wished me good-bye at the cottage with, 
 " Well, I must be off ; we shall meet in town, 
 I suppose ?" His manner had said clearly, 
 "This is the beginning of a new order of 
 things, remember, for the old one is ended." 
 
156 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 He had stooped and kissed my cheek, and 
 was gone. ... I raised my face; all was 
 still, no sound of a boat going by, no note 
 of a bird overhead to disturb the silence, 
 only the leaves falling poor leaves, that 
 had hung so fresh and high, and now fell 
 low, sere and yellow with a whisper that I 
 seemed to understand : " The day is over, 
 the summer is done, and you are alone, as 
 all human beings are alone sooner or later. 
 It is a part of life, so great a part that it is 
 nearly the whole ; only some are alone in 
 the silence, and some in the midst of many 
 who go past them, but never take account." 
 
 I put my hands over my eyes again, I 
 stopped my ears, and rocked to and fro, and 
 wondered when I should die. Oh, what girl- 
 hood suffers, Nell ! Yet how few who are 
 near understand, and how some scoff, and 
 most forget ! At last, in sheer despair, I got 
 up, almost ran to the boat, and rowed back 
 with the strength of despair youth's de- 
 spair in my arms. I would never see the 
 cottage again, I would never see the island 
 again. . . . 
 
 Janet was ready; the luggage had^one 
 to the station. We got into a fly and slow- 
 ly followed. It was all over; the summer 
 was finished. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 157 
 
 Mark came to see us soon after we were 
 back in the town, but he was changed alto- 
 gether. In some sort of way he made an 
 apology for the past. " I think we were 
 very foolish to go on as we did all the sum- 
 mer," he said, " and last winter at the stu- 
 dio. Jack and I had a talk before he went 
 abroad, and I ought to have remembered it ; 
 but, after all, you are not a child." What 
 could I say, and what could I do ? If I had 
 refused to let him come to the house, or had 
 quarrelled with him, what could I have said to 
 Jack ? Besides, on what excuse could I have 
 quarrelled with him that would not have left 
 me shamefaced ? Above all, too, I loved him, 
 even yet, a thousand times too much to risk 
 seeing him no more. So, silent and misera- 
 ble, I let things drift as they pleased. 
 
 We never went back to the old footing 
 never. He came to see us once a week; 
 but his manner grew cold and formal, criti- 
 cal and fault-finding. I have learned to 
 know that the first sign of love's waning is 
 when it takes to being critical. Love ? The 
 pity of it is that I can never be sure that 
 Mark had ever any love at all for me, or I 
 could forgive him everything. 
 
 That winter his views of life seemed to 
 change, his plans to alter entirely. Without 
 
158 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 telling me so in actual words, he was always 
 trying to convey this to me, and I felt as 
 helpless to swim against the strange tide 
 that was setting in as to swim with it. For, 
 if he could change so suddenly, I could not. 
 If all the summer and the winter before 
 he had been dishonest, I had been honest 
 enough, and what I appeared to feel that I 
 had felt and not pretended. But what he 
 felt and intended now was suddenly thrust 
 upon me. We had often talked of some 
 day painting a picture together. It had 
 been his idea, not mine. He was to paint 
 the figures, and I the background. We 
 were to begin it when we were back in town. 
 I alluded to it in one of my letters. His 
 reply was : " We must paint our great pict- 
 ure later on in life, for I have too much to 
 do to think of it yet. We are both sure to 
 marry, and if some day I like your husband 
 and you like my wife, we can then astonish 
 the world with our united efforts." Was 
 not that sufficient ? Yet, in after days, he 
 had the meanness to taunt me with being 
 false to him to him who never once was 
 true to me or said a word to bind me. 
 
 Gradually his visits ceased, but we often 
 wrote to each other. A correspondence had 
 somehow been established between us, 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 159 
 
 though his letters were never those of a lov- 
 er. Yet he assumed" an authority in my life 
 that, against my will, had a certain sweet- 
 ness, and I submitted and referred all things 
 to him, and thought him manly when he 
 bullied me, and found an odd delight even 
 in being browbeaten nay, I liked him for 
 his very tyranny, his anger and cruelty. We 
 had a long quarrel once, and he wrote me 
 letters full of jibes and taunts and fault- 
 finding; and when at last he stirred the 
 devil that, after all, is chained near most 
 passionate women's hearts, and I gave him 
 back the bitterness he sent me, he refused 
 to open any more letters, yet sent me a vol- 
 ley of insults. Manly, was it not, Nellie, to 
 bully from a safe corner a woman whose love 
 he had won, and whose life he had filled 
 with shame and humiliation ? 
 
 We made up that quarrel. But he took 
 some vast credit to himself for forgiving me, 
 and in the letter in which he did so told 
 me that living alone so much spoiled me, he 
 wished he could see me " married to some 
 one who would be as fond of you and as 
 proud of you as he ought to be." A noble 
 sentiment, truly, worthy of him who uttered it. 
 
 Nell, I can write no more to-night, but in 
 a day or two I will go on. 
 
XII 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 iO go on. John came back early 
 in November. He asked if I 
 had seen much of Mark. s - 
 
 I answered simply, " Yes, he 
 came and stayed at the inn 
 near the cottage." 
 
 They met that evening, and perhaps some- 
 thing passed between them, for they were 
 never again very intimate, and Mark's visits 
 ceased from that time. He only came to 
 our house once afterwards, to say good-bye 
 before he went abroad for some months to 
 the Cape, as artist for his paper a formal 
 visit during which my heart stood still. I 
 never asked John for any explanation ; I 
 could not. Then followed a weary time 
 enough ; John was at work all day, and oc- 
 cupied or out most evenings ; the winter 
 months went by a long, dark winter of mis- 
 ery and shame and remorse to me. I want 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN l6l 
 
 to hurry over it ; it shakes me even now to 
 remember. . . . 
 
 Nellie, dear, there are some things we do 
 of which we can give no account ; and there 
 is one that I did of which I want to tell you. 
 In the wild manner in which girls overdo 
 things I vowed that if in the whirl and 
 twirl of time Fate should ever give me 
 Mark's love, that love for which I had hun- 
 gered so, and if by some strange twist he 
 should ask me to be his wife, I would refuse 
 him ; for what woman with any pride at all 
 would marry a man who had heaped upon 
 her the insults that he had heaped on me ? 
 Injuries, nay, blows, I could have forgiven, 
 but not that which he had done to me. I 
 am ashamed to tell you how I strengthened 
 my vow, but one day I walked alone a cold, 
 dreary day to Kensal Green, and knelt 
 down beside my mother's grave, and sobbed 
 till I thought my heart would break ; and as 
 I crouched down, kissing the earth that was 
 her covering, I swore as I loved her, and as 
 I knew in her life and in her dying hour she 
 had loved her children, that I would never 
 more be anything in the world to Mark, cost 
 me what it might. " Never, never, mother, 
 dear, I swear to you," I cried, and put my 
 face down on the icy grass, and felt as 
 
162 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 though a strange thrill of comfort and sym- 
 pathy came to me from her still heart be- 
 neath. Then I walked back calmly and 
 with a feeling of security I had not known 
 for months. 
 
 Sometimes, nay, often, I have thought 
 that all Mark's conduct was because he mis- 
 took me. It made my heart stand still when 
 the idea first occurred to me it seemed too 
 dreadful to be possible and yet again and 
 again it has come back to me as the solu- 
 tion of the past it is that he thought me 
 fast and bad. Honest men do not make 
 love to women as he made love to me, and 
 to women they have known all their lives, 
 unless they think them ; but it makes 
 my face burn with shame ; I cannot write 
 it ; and even then it is despicable enough, 
 and does but save them from the last depth 
 of utter scoundrelism. But if he did not 
 think that, could he have treated me as he 
 did ? Could he, too, after the terms we had 
 been on, have spoken of the possibility of 
 our some day doing work together and being 
 friends, " if he liked my husband and I liked 
 his wife." Maddening as the thought is, 
 Nell, there is yet some grain of secret com- 
 fort in it, for my baseness would have weak- 
 ened his, have accounted for his conduct, 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 163 
 
 and I loved him so I do still that I be- 
 lieve I could send my soul down any depth, 
 if by doing so I could raise his. 
 
 It was in the spring that followed on that 
 winter, and while Mark was still abroad, that 
 John became almost suddenly famous. His 
 professional work prospered amazingly, and 
 all things went well with him, as they have 
 done ever since. We grew richer, and went 
 out more, entertained at home, and had 
 more in all ways to fill our lives. Everybody 
 liked John ; he made endless friends he is 
 so simple and clever, so unassuming, and 
 yet so perfect in his manner that it is easy 
 to understand his fascination for the world, 
 the ease with which people loved him, and 
 the eagerness with which they ran after him 
 when they once came to know him. The 
 result was that he was more and more from 
 home, unless he stayed to help me receive 
 friends (and that was not very often) ; he 
 joined societies, spoke at meetings, and was 
 on committees, for John has always held 
 that a man should play as busy a part in the 
 world as it will let him. These things drew 
 us further apart, not at heart, but as regarded 
 the close intimacy of daily life. 
 
 All this time, and for months past, Austin 
 Brian had been in love with me. Why, 
 
1 64 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 Heaven only knows, for I had eyes and ears 
 for no man all human beings were the 
 same to me : I used to feel like an automa- 
 ton. He was quiet and manly and clever. 
 I have often thought that, had I never seen 
 Mark, I could have loved Austin, have mar- 
 ried him ; but as it was he was a shadow to 
 me, a nothing he took no hold on me at 
 all. The moment he was out of my sight I 
 forgot him altogether ; when he was in it I 
 only took the faintest interest in him the 
 interest that comes of forcing one's self to 
 get outside the prison into which one's heart 
 can put one a solitary, miserable cell 
 enough in which one broods and hates one's 
 life, and beats against its bars, and suffers a 
 thousand times more than if stone walls had 
 shut one in. One day it seemed so odd I 
 could have laughed, but that mentally I only 
 looked at it in the dazed way in which I 
 looked at all things Austin Brian proposed 
 to me. I refused him, of course, and the 
 incident took no hold on me. He did not 
 avoid me afterwards or cease coming to the 
 house. At another time this might have 
 piqued me, though he had asked that we 
 might remain friends j but now I did not 
 care, and scarcely noticed it. That he loved 
 me still I saw plainly enough in the hazy 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 165 
 
 way I saw everything, but concern of mine 
 it was none. I remember we danced to- 
 gether a good deal one night it was at the 
 Woolwich ball ; we drove down to it with 
 the Callows, who had made up a party to go 
 (they had relatives quartered at Woolwich, 
 and were always going to and fro), and at 
 the end he said to me, " I shall never forget 
 to-night." I looked up at him in wonder. 
 What was there to remember ? 
 
 One day a sort of crisis came it was in 
 the late summer, just before we left town. 
 The morning brought a note from Mark. 
 He was coming to England for a week, but 
 should only stay a couple of days in Lon- 
 don, " so there would be no time to look in, 
 but he hoped I was all right ; he had been 
 reading John's article," etc. Was not this 
 enough ? A year before we had been lovers ; 
 he had not seemed able to bear a single day 
 away from me ; now, after months of absence, 
 he could not manage to come for even an 
 hour. ... I want to put it all shortly. It 
 tries me sorely to live over all those past 
 days again. ... I did not answer Mark's let- 
 ter ; it was impossible. I did not mention 
 it to John, for my lips felt as if they could 
 not say his name. But I shed bitter tears 
 over his note. I remember that in these 
 
I 66 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 calm days, and wonder at my passion then, 
 for I covered the half sheet of paper with 
 wild kisses and loved him clinched it in 
 my hands and loathed him. 
 
 That evening John did not come home to 
 dinner, but sent me a note saying he would 
 be back by nine at latest. It was late July, 
 and most people had left town. I could 
 eat nothing, but went out in the twilight, 
 feeling I could not stay in the house. I 
 walked quickly away from Bolton Row, on 
 and on, till somehow I was near the Regent's 
 Park. Perhaps it was thinking of the Berrys 
 that insensibly sent my feet towards them. 
 When I realized where I was, I turned and 
 almost fled in another direction. At last I 
 was near Clarence Gate, and then by Corn- 
 wall Terrace, all the time feeling half dazed 
 and as if a whirlwind were before and be- 
 hind, and I walked between. Suddenly some 
 one passing by started and stopped. It was 
 Austin Brian ; he looked at me bewildered. 
 
 " I have a headache," I explained, " and 
 John is not coming home till nine. I wanted 
 to walk about alone ; perhaps it is an unusual 
 thing to do, but it does not matter ; Janet 
 could not come with me." Probably my 
 voice or manner betrayed that I was miser- 
 able, I do not know, but he seemed to divine 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 167 
 
 it, though he said nothing, only turned round 
 as if to take me back. Just to take refuge 
 from my wretched, miserable self, I let him 
 walk beside me. He had infinite tact and 
 human feeling. . . . Oh, if years before I had 
 but seen him instead of Mark. We went on 
 together into the park, for I said that I 
 wanted to be near the trees, and not to go 
 back to the four walls of the drawing-room 
 in Bolton Row. We talked of books, of 
 scenery, of the sky that had still some fad- 
 ing crimson in it from the sunset that was 
 over, and every minute became grayer with 
 the coming night. Suddenly I felt some- 
 thing at my throat ; a strange blinding came 
 before my eyes ; I knew that my face was 
 white, my lips trembling ; I looked away into 
 the distance, longing to vanish into it for- 
 ever, evermore ; life only made me ache with 
 memories, filled me with dread of the years 
 that seemed to stretch out before me, a vista 
 of waiting and tiredness I had not strength 
 or courage to face. For a moment I thought 
 my senses were going. He looked at me in 
 wonder and alarm, for I had stopped, feeling 
 as if I could not go on. 
 
 " I am so tired," I gasped ; " I think I shall 
 die." The words came piteously it was 
 only by a violent effort that I kept back the 
 
l68 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 hopeless tears that struggled to come into 
 my eyes. As if he understood, he drew my 
 hand onto his arm with a tenderness like 
 that of a mother's to a worn-out child ; he 
 looked down at me and almost supported 
 me. 
 
 "You are very tired; I can see that," he 
 said, gently ; " and sad, too. I wish you would 
 tell me that I could help you; I would give 
 my life to be of the very least service to you." 
 There was no passion in the voice, only a 
 depth, an affection that carried just for one 
 lone moment an infinite rest into my soul. 
 He was so strong, too, with the manly 
 strength that is born of many things, but 
 most, perhaps, of gentleness ; and the men 
 who possess this are our unconscious mas- 
 ters for good, just as perhaps the men of 
 Mark's type are our masters for evil. A few 
 minutes later he had called a hansom and 
 was driving me back. I thought of that 
 first drive to the studio with Mark, the man 
 I had loved so well, and of this with the man 
 whom I knew loved me. He was going to 
 leave me at the door, but a sort of despera- 
 tion came over me. John was probably at 
 home, or would be immediately, but he 
 would be busy, and I should be left again 
 to brood over my own imaginings. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 169 
 
 " Come in," I said ; " John will be glad to 
 see you. We have tea at half-past nine ; come 
 and have a cup." He entered gladly ; per- 
 haps he thought it encouragement. John 
 had not returned ; he did not come for a long 
 time. In half an hour Austin Brian was 
 pleading his cause again in this little draw- 
 ing-room where you and I met again the 
 other day after the long years of absence. 
 He was good, Nell, and he loved me ; he 
 wanted to take care of me, to give me a 
 bright and happy life ; he seemed to under- 
 stand how lonely I was, to know all the 
 longings that were mine years ago of any- 
 thing but the best in one he had no compre- 
 hension. And he was not afraid or ashamed 
 to speak as was the other man, on whom I 
 had wasted my life's love. I knew that with 
 him I should have rest and security, that 
 the better side of me would live and the bad 
 shrink ashamed away. Above all, I felt how 
 truly he loved me. I was very grateful to 
 him, and I saw that it was in my power to 
 do some good, to make some one happy 
 I, to whom happiness was forever denied, 
 might do this. 
 
 " I never loved any woman but you," he 
 said, simply ; " I never shall." I cannot tell 
 you how it all came about, but somehow I 
 
170 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 promised to marry him, told him I would 
 try to love him, to be happy, and let him kiss 
 me just once, thinking the while with a 
 shuddering shame, though my heart still 
 quickened with love as well as with scorn of 
 him, of Mark's first kiss in the garden at 
 Poona. Then John came home, and Austin 
 went up and told him straight, brimming 
 over with joy while he spoke and not striv- 
 ing to hide it, and in a flash it seemed I was 
 engaged and all my future arranged. For 
 the first few hours I was too dazed to com- 
 prehend altogether what I had done, to feel 
 keenly anything save a sense of serenity, of 
 rest, of almost strained thankfulness ; but a 
 day later and I was repenting wildly, feeling 
 like a prisoner, like one who had shut the 
 door on all possibilities. And there was 
 nothing to be done ; I was no longer a mere 
 girl ; it was my own deed I was wretched 
 nearly mad. Suddenly it struck me that 
 Mark would understand the agony and 
 shame I had gone through if I told him 
 all, and that perhaps, if only for fear of any 
 words in this world being forever too late, 
 would speak up at last and set things right 
 to my heart, though it was forever too late 
 to set them right outwardly. He would 
 surely counsel me, I thought would be 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 171 
 
 gentle to me this once. Had we not spent 
 long days and weeks together, content to 
 be the boundaries of each other's world? 
 Oh, deep down in his heart, though never 
 his lips had said it, he must have had some 
 love, some care for me ; and if but for a 
 single moment I might know it, I could walk 
 in silence and calmness forever after, though 
 I never set eyes on his dear face again. 
 Besides, I had had no secrets from him for 
 so long, had lived no life that he had not 
 governed, I could not bear by my own doing 
 to know that our lives were forever sepa- 
 rated. So I wrote and told him that I was 
 engaged ; that I had somehow let it come 
 about, and that though I saw how good and 
 true Austin was, I was not in love with him, 
 and chafed and wanted to be free again. 
 
 He replied quickly enough, saying how 
 glad he was ; he had wanted to see me 
 married ; he did not understand my not be- 
 ing satisfied; soon I would wonder at my 
 own impatience, and so on. How that let- 
 ter fretted me, how like my own funeral ser- 
 mon it seemed ; I put it away for a while, 
 then I burned it, holding it down with the 
 poker while it blazed, lest, like a fiend, it 
 should rise, and its words madden me again. 
 Then I gave myself up to the martyrdom of 
 
172 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 my engagement an odd, exaggerated word 
 to use. But it was nothing less, and all the 
 more a martyrdom because I felt that had 
 I never seen Mark I could have been con- 
 tent have loved and married Austin, that 
 he would have satisfied all the higher feel- 
 ings in my nature the eager searching for 
 ideals, the strivings after better things than 
 those within my immediate reach. But, as 
 it was, it could not be; nothing could be save 
 my despair. I realized that I was a woman 
 with a past, that in my heart there were 
 memories of days and hours and meetings 
 of which I could never tell a husband through 
 all the years of life that we might spend to- 
 gether, that forever I should be a deception 
 to him. How could I tell him of all that 
 had been, shared as it was with a man who 
 never once had said he loved me ? If Mark 
 had only spared me that. I have so often 
 thought that he should have lied to me, 
 have pretended that he loved me, that he 
 would have done so had he not taken me 
 for all that I dread to think. He would not 
 surely have put into the life of a woman he 
 thought good and pure all the shame that 
 he put into mine ? Mind this, dear Nell, that 
 had I done all that I did for a man I loved 
 and who had loved me I should have thought 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 173 
 
 little of the shame ; but to have done it for a 
 man who did not even think me worth a 
 pretence of love oh, bitter pain indeed, 
 bitter pain that made my very soul rock 
 with misery, and memories that stupefied 
 me. 
 
 And yet, with the sight of Austin's face, 
 with the sound of his voice, there came ever 
 a sense of peace, of rest and thankfulness, a 
 view of life, a dream, a vista that made my 
 heart yearn but that I knew had come too 
 late. It was like a sight of heavenly still- 
 ness to the worn and passionate soul that, 
 stretching out to reach earthly bliss, had 
 slipped down, down into the torments below. 
 And day by day he loved me more, and for- 
 ever he would say, and seemed to delight in 
 saying, how good and pure and sweet I was ; 
 he believed in me as though I had been a 
 saint, an ideal of all that was best in woman- 
 hood. It was for my sore punishment that 
 it should be so, perhaps. ... I could not go 
 on bearing it, Nell ; I could not. One night, 
 after he had protested his love for me, look- 
 ing into my face as only one's lover does, 
 suddenly I spoke. I begged him to set me 
 free. I told him that I was bad and wicked, 
 and could not put into words all that was 
 in my heart, or tell him of by-gones that 
 
174 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 I remembered ; but that I could not marry 
 him I was not fit to do so; that I was worn 
 and hard and cold towards all people save 
 one, and from even him I recoiled. " I want 
 to be free and alone," I cried; "forever 
 alone," and I clasped my hands and implored 
 him to let me go. 
 
 I "cannot tell you more. He went to 
 Egypt- A year later he was killed in some 
 accidental skirmish. The news of his death 
 fell on my ear like the sound of a death-bell 
 to a murderer. ... Oh God, what a life it 
 has been, this inner life of mine, of which no 
 one knows or suspects ! Yes, my life, Madge 
 Brooke's, who is supposed to be cold and 
 worldly, to have made many conquests, and 
 to care only for them and for society. . . . 
 
 I told Mark it was broken off. He wrote 
 and regretted it ; he felt sure that " it would 
 have been better to have married a good 
 fellow really fond of me." The way in which 
 he spoke of any one being fond of me was 
 cynical, as though he half doubted the pos- 
 sibility. 
 
 I have so often wished that I could kill 
 him, that I could see him lying stark and 
 dead, and know that I had done it ; I would 
 put my face against his till its icy coldness 
 sent a shudder through me, and then for all 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 175 
 
 eternity suffer torments, burn and burn till 
 my heart and soul, that felt so black and 
 wicked, were white, white ashes. 
 
 I used to see Austin's dead face at one 
 time, no matter where I turned or what I 
 did ; but now it has gone, passed on with 
 the shadows into far eternity ; and still oh, 
 Nellie, for my sad curse I sometimesMove 
 that man whose cowardice has ruined me, 
 body and soul. I saw him once after Aus- 
 tin's death; that was the last time I saw him 
 at all. I called at the Berrys' one day. 
 Some fascination makes me go there every 
 now and then ; they, knowing nothing, think 
 it is mere passing civility to themselves. He 
 was there, and when I came away he came 
 too, and walked home with me. I was cold 
 and silent it piqued him, I suppose, for he 
 grew almost tender, and talked of old days, 
 till I thought my heart would burst ; but I 
 kept my lips shut. Then suddenly he turned 
 and reproached me in roundabout ways he 
 never in his life spoke up like a man, for 
 good or evil for having been false to him. 
 He had not gone off, he said, and got en- 
 gaged to some one else ; he had not forgot- 
 ten so soon. Could he fall lower than that 
 be more contemptible ? I could not answer 
 him, but I looked up and felt the tears come 
 
1/6 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 into my eyes. He has been all my life, and 
 I have loved him as few women love in these 
 cold-hearted days. Even that afternoon, as 
 I walked beside him from the Berrys', I could 
 have respected him again, loved him again, if 
 he had but once said out that he loved me, 
 or had loved me; or that he had not loved me 
 and begged my forgiveness for his treachery ; 
 but no, honesty and manliness with him do 
 not include truthfulness and courage towards 
 women. I think that accusation of being 
 false to him was a revelation of all things. 
 Then I understood him, and shall for ever- 
 more or, at least, I think so. False ? Why, 
 if I had worshipped Austin Brian, and had 
 married him and lived with him all my days, 
 and the world had quoted me as a devoted 
 wife, I should still have been no more false 
 than is the girl who, when all earthly happi- 
 ness is at an end, and human hopes have 
 passed her by, takes her miserable heart to a 
 convent, and throws herself at her Saviour's 
 feet with an adoration that is half despair. 
 
 This is my story, dear. It ended three 
 years ago ; but a few days since I heard that 
 Mark, who has been roaming about, was 
 coming back to England again for good. I 
 long, yet dread, to meet him, though I see 
 clearly enough now, and understand him. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 177 
 
 Do not hate me because you know me 
 through and through. 
 
 Next time I shall tell you of frivolities, 
 and forget that the world holds anything 
 beneath the surface on which the sun shines. 
 Oh, the mistake, the sorrow, the tragedy of 
 human feeling ! Thank Heaven that I have 
 done with it ! MADGE. 
 
XIII 
 
 MADGE TO NELLIE 
 
 March 6, 1884. 
 
 is a month since I wrote to you 
 last, those nightmare letters. I 
 am better now ; for the past is 
 only a grave on which in this 
 present time I stamp my angry 
 feet. Fate has, after all, not been so very 
 cruel, and I am thankful, behind all my oth- 
 er feeings, that Mark's path and mine lie 
 apart. He is well enough or ill enough to 
 have loved, to have made into a romance ; 
 but had we married, how I should have 
 hated him by this time, save in those wild 
 moments when I was blind to all that was 
 best on earth. 
 
 I sometimes think that, without meaning 
 or knowing it, the Berrys helped to separate 
 us. They have different ideas from his and 
 mine on all things, and they are primly evan- 
 gelical. They are a little cynically inclined, 
 
LOVE LETTERS OB' A WORLDLY WOMAN 179 
 
 too, as people sometimes are who have lit- 
 tle belief in human nature, or who have not 
 been lucky in their friends. I knew this, 
 and during that last weary winter, when 
 Mark and I were living out the end of our 
 play, and I was learning my bitter lesson, I 
 used to go to the Berrys', and, with a half- 
 scornful daring I could not explain, say 
 things that I knew would be repeated and 
 commented on, and in my soul I scoffed 
 and scorned him for judging me by hear- 
 say. All the years he has been away I have 
 done the same. Mrs. Berry told me she 
 wrote to him once a month ; I tried to give 
 her something to say I knew how he would 
 sneer at this or interpret that after his own 
 fashion, and I have lavished a measureless 
 scorn upon him in my silent heart for doing 
 so. But enough. 
 
 I am glad you have had a visit from John, 
 dear Nell. He gave no hint of his inten- 
 tion till the morning he was starting; then 
 suddenly he said : 
 
 " I am sorry to have missed Nellie, and 
 shall run down to Worcester for a day to 
 see her." He was always fond of you ; no 
 wonder he wanted to see you again. He said 
 you were very gentle and sweet, and did him 
 a world of good. Ask him again, if you can. 
 
l8o LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 There is a scrap of news that amused me 
 when I heard it : James Harrison is staying 
 at Daffodil. Aunt Maria invited him the 
 once despised James Harrison. She wrote 
 and told me that he was there, that he was 
 very different from formerly, most fastidious 
 in his tastes, that he found her dear girls 
 charming, and that she greatly admired him. 
 It is easy to see through : she means to let 
 Isabel marry him ; Grace is already en- 
 gaged to a clergyman who has a church 
 somewhere in the West Indies a dismal 
 prospect. Well, Isabel will make a good, 
 submissive little wife to James: probably 
 she will like the house in Gower Street 
 will think it altogether satisfying. Yes, it 
 is a match that would do ; I hope with all 
 my heart it will come off, and poor old James 
 be happy at last. 
 
 What else ? I have strengthened my soul 
 by reading some Browning. How well he 
 makes one love strong men ! His women, 
 too, have hearts that beat and blood that 
 flows quickly through their veins. A living 
 world he gives us, and not a world of pulse- 
 less shadows that seem only to move in the 
 moonlight, and to have no strength for the 
 light of day. 
 
 Yesterday Lady Mary Sully came to see 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN l8l 
 
 me ; she is some relation of Sir Noel's, and 
 seems to take a sentimental interest in me. 
 If she did but know but I forget have I 
 told you about Sir Noel Franks ? He comes 
 here often ? Do you know him by reputa- 
 tion ? He is clever and diplomatic ; people 
 say he will be in the next Government, that 
 he is one of the coming men in politics. 
 He ought to be "come," not "coming," for 
 he is fifty, and looks it, very bald, very si- 
 lent, and a little sombre ; cold in manner, 
 careful in making a statement, rather state- 
 ly and dried-up-looking, withal interesting. 
 Plan -making and ambitious, I should say; 
 he interests me in a cold and intellectual 
 manner ; he would not be bad if one wished 
 to make a worldly marriage. He contem- 
 plates making an unsentimental one with 
 me if I will have him. I know that ; I hear 
 it in his voice, polite and complimentary; 
 see it in his eye, criticising but satisfied. 
 He thinks I should do, dear Nell. I am 
 much flattered, but I keep his proposal at 
 bay for the present. In the future I may 
 bring it on to refuse and have doue with, or 
 to deliberately accept. Love is a finished 
 story, and if I marry it must be from am- 
 bition. Love is not all, I s^id a few letters 
 back, and it is true ; moreover, with my 
 
1 82 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 past and my feelings, I could not endure to 
 marry a man overmuch in love with me. 
 He might be demonstrative and affection- 
 ate. It would drive me mad ; I should hate 
 him. I am not dead enough even yet to 
 endure sentiment I do not share. Things 
 cannot go on always as they are now. John 
 will marry, I hope, and I must make a home 
 somewhere. I do not feel that I can make 
 it alone ; I am not sufficiently strong-mind- 
 ed ; and though I do not want love, the fem- 
 inine instincts are still strong within me, and 
 I hunger after being cared for in some sort 
 of fashion the colder the better. I want 
 to be a consideration to some one, nay, even 
 a burden ; I want to spend some one's mon- 
 ey a droll thing to say, but I do not say it 
 in a mercenary spirit, but only because there 
 is an unconscious pleasure in the exercise 
 of one's feminine weaknesses, to be the first 
 person in some one's home, the chief person 
 in some one's life, the person he was bound 
 to consider first; and the more distinguished 
 the man, the greater would be my inward 
 satisfaction : since love is denied me, all this 
 is my longing. A career for myself I simply 
 could not endure except that which consist- 
 ed in helping to make one for some one else. 
 Yes, I think I could find life w r orth living, if 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 183 
 
 I must live and life is a terribly persistent 
 thing in helping a clever man, and espe- 
 cially a diplomatist, to make a career could 
 know something that would even pass itself 
 for happiness, in sharing the rewards that in 
 my secret soul I knew I had helped to win. 
 There is an excitement, too, in helping to 
 govern the country, to make history, as do 
 all clever men who take an active part in 
 public affars. I should like, if I marry, to 
 gain that as compensation for all that will 
 never come to my heart again. But I have 
 kept Sir Noel at bay. I cannot bring my- 
 self to take the final step, and there is no 
 occasion while I still have my dear John. 
 
 I have almost a horror, so strong is my 
 shrinking, of facing the world alone ; but 
 for that I would not contemplate marriage 
 at all, and only can contemplate it in the 
 shape of an ambitious outside life ; a quiet 
 one, such as James Harrison thought might 
 satisfy me, would be worse than suicide. 
 But to go back to Lady Mary. She called 
 yesterday and sat a long time telling me Sir 
 Noel's history. He was very much in love 
 when he was a young man with the daugh- 
 ter of a West Country parson ; they were 
 engaged, and he was devoted to her; she 
 jilted him to make a grander marriage, for 
 
184 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 he was then poor and without prospects. 
 She became a fashionable person, a leader 
 in society, and finally went abroad with her 
 husband, who is governor at an important 
 place. Sir Noel gave up sentiment after 
 this experience, has never cared for women 
 since, and is not likely to do so now. I 
 think, from what Lady Mary says, that he 
 felt a certain dogged joy at first in succeed- 
 ing to a relation's money, in being success- 
 ful ; but all this is merged now in the eager- 
 ness of the statesman. Still, though he has 
 ceased to take a keen interest in women, he 
 feels that the time has come when it would 
 be as well to marry. He thinks, as I say, 
 that I should do. Perhaps I shall, dear 
 Nell ; I do not know. I have become a 
 cold and worldly woman, just as he has be- 
 come a cold and worldly man. So we should 
 agree, neither expecting nor desiring nor ex- 
 acting impossible things of each other, yet 
 finding plenty to fill our lives, and having 
 joint interests enough to make us pull to- 
 gether with a certain pleasantness. 
 
 Dear, it is two years since your husband 
 died. Could you not bear to come to town 
 for a bit and stay here ? You must bring 
 the child, of course. I should love to hear 
 the sound of your footsteps up and down 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 185 
 
 the stairs, to listen to your voice, to see 
 your little one, to play with it and nurse it. 
 I am hungry for the sight of a child that 
 belongs to some one who is dear to me. 
 What a wonderful thing it must be to have 
 a child of one's own if one loves, or has 
 loved, its father ! To know that the life is 
 there because you and he have loved, and 
 out of your love has grown all the immortal- 
 ity that humanity in itself can know. Life 
 after life may dawn, even race after race 
 may grow, and a strong nation rise because 
 in the beginning two people have loved each 
 other. Your child and his, your life and his 
 going on when you and he alike are gone, 
 and her child, perhaps, after her ; and again 
 and again ; all because in the by-gone days 
 you two loved and were together. I wish 
 you would come, dear, and stay as long a 
 time as you can. You would make me bet- 
 ter, more womanly you see how selfish I 
 am in wanting you you would soften me. 
 Sometimes, now, I feel so hard. It is only 
 a shell ; but there are shells that nothing 
 can break ; I do not want to own one of 
 them, to be forever beyond reach of the 
 best in the world you and your child, Nel- 
 lie, and the like of you. 
 
 We dine out to-night, go to the Grahams' 
 
l86 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 
 
 " at home," and the Tetleys' ball afterwards. 
 I like it ; like to look at the people, each one 
 with his history, his secrets, his ambitions, 
 his memories, all nicely veneered over for 
 the evening with a convenient social man- 
 ner. I like to see the little crowd on the 
 pavement outside, watching the guests de- 
 scend from their carriages, dim figures that 
 seem to have come out of the darkness to 
 watch us step into the light. I see their 
 eyes on me, I feel them watch me enter the 
 place into which they peer so curiously, and 
 I think how merrily I could laugh if sud- 
 denly I might be one of them ; if I might 
 go back to a cellar-home, and fan the fire 
 into a blaze, and by its light look up at 
 homely faces that loved me and made the 
 whole wide world a blessed place, no matter 
 whether pain or poverty came or lagged. I 
 am a fool, Nell, a fool, for I long and hanker 
 after love still, though it is all over and done 
 with forever and forever. I will write and 
 ask Sir Noel and some others to dine as an 
 antidote to all this nonsense. Come and 
 stay, Nellie. I long for you. 
 
XIV 
 
 MADGE TO MARK CUTHBERTSON 
 
 March 8, 1884. 
 
 >EAR MARK, John told me 
 that you were back, and of his 
 meeting with you yesterday, 
 and that you said you wanted 
 to come and see me. It is a 
 little formal to write and ask leave after 
 that, is it not ? But perhaps you have many 
 engagements and no time to come just on 
 the chance of rinding me at home. So this 
 is to tell you that you will find me any day, 
 as a rule, at about five. Or will you come 
 and dine at eight on Wednesday next week ? 
 John told me to invite you. One or two 
 others are coming; not many. 
 
 Yours, M. B. 
 
XV 
 
 MADGE TO NELLIE 
 
 March qth. 
 
 ARK has sent me a note, one of 
 his own vague, incomprehensi- 
 ble ones. He is coming to dine 
 P^ on Wednesday. All the rest 
 
 you shall know later. 
 One thing more only : James Harrison 
 and Isabel are engaged. How glad I am 
 for him, for perhaps he will be happy at last ! 
 She, too, will be happy, I think. But Aunt 
 Maria's tactics are amusing. Poor, despised 
 James Harrison ! It is a topsy-turvy world, 
 dear Nell. Come and stay in this portion 
 of it with John and me for a bit. 
 
XVI 
 
 MADGE TO JAMES HARRISON 
 
 March 8, 1884. 
 
 EAR COUSIN JAMES, That 
 is what I shall call you in fut- 
 ure. Has it a pleasant sound ? 
 I am delighted, indeed, to 
 hear of your engagement to Is- 
 abel. I had an idea of what might happen, 
 I confess, when I heard that you were stay- 
 ing again at that most beguiling Daffodil. 
 My best and truest and most cordial wishes 
 for your happiness now and always, and for 
 hers, too you must consider this letter to 
 be written to you both. Nothing could have 
 given me greater pleasure than your news 
 this morning. 
 
 I feel sure that you are very lucky, dear 
 cousin, for you have had all sorts of worldly 
 prosperity already, and now you are going 
 to have a dear little wife, and your children 
 
190 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 
 
 the kindest of mothers. Tell Isabel I throw 
 up my hat for joy on her behalf. 
 
 I shall come to your wedding and dance 
 merrily if Aunt Maria gives us the oppor- 
 tunity. I am glad it is to be immediately. 
 " Happy is the wooing that's not long a-do- 
 ing," says the song or the proverb. 
 
 Till then, you two, farewell. 
 
 MADGE BROOKE. 
 
XVII 
 
 MADGE TO NELLIE 
 
 March i$tk. 
 
 AM sorry you cannot give us 
 more than a week, dearest Nell, 
 but that is better than nothing. 
 John will meet you at Padding- 
 ton on Friday, at five. We will 
 have a happy time, and pretend that we are 
 all children again. 
 
 Yes, I will tell you about Mark. He 
 dined here last night, but he hardly said 
 three words to me. He flirted the whole 
 time with little Mrs. Browson. She is young 
 and fresh, of the dairy-maid type, but very 
 pretty, with lovely coloring. Her husband 
 is a rising barrister, exceedingly calm and 
 abstracted. I think he is grateful to any man 
 who flirts with his wife it takes some of her 
 exuberance off his hands ; moreover, he con- 
 siders it a sign of the social success that I 
 somehow divine to be his secret ambition. 
 
Ip2 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 Two days before the dinner Mark called 
 here, late in the afternoon ; I felt my heart 
 stand still when he entered. It was three 
 years and more since we had met. He is a 
 little stouter ; he does not look such abso- 
 lutely good form as in the old days his 
 appearance does not gratify one's vanity so 
 much. His expression, too, is not so good ; 
 it is more worldly ; there is greater sug- 
 gestion of sarcasm in the tone of his voice. 
 We looked at each other swiftly; we both 
 remembered 
 
 " I thought I would come and see you 
 before Wednesday we can't talk much at 
 a dinner-party. I wish you would not give 
 one," he laughed. His laugh went through 
 me, and brought back a hundred memories. 
 " Why, you are not much changed. Wom- 
 en generally change a good deal in three 
 years," he added. 
 
 "Perhaps I am really " I began, but 
 could not go on. It was so strange to see 
 him, to hear him speak again, to remember 
 how I had cared for him. Did I care still ? 
 Do I ? Ah, Nell, I do not know. He has 
 a power over me, a spell, an influence, but 
 what it is I do not know. 
 
 He stayed to tea ; I watched him narrow- 
 ly, half afraid. Once, when I handed him a 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 193 
 
 cup, his hand for a moment touched mine 
 it went through me and made me shiver. 
 What did it mean ? 
 
 " And you are not married yet ?" he said, 
 in the old, mocking manner. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You ought to be. Time is getting on ; 
 you are not a girl any longer." Could any- 
 thing be in less good taste ? 
 
 " No ; but marriage is not everything," I 
 answered. 
 
 " It generally is to women." 
 
 " Oh no not now." 
 
 "Unless they are strong-minded." 
 
 " I am not strong-minded," I answered, 
 " and it is not everything to me." 
 
 "You are so inconstant," he laughed. 
 "You are not to be trusted." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" I asked. 
 
 " What I say," he answered. There was 
 a little scorn in his manner that galled me 
 to the quick. 
 
 " Mark, what do you mean ?" I demanded, 
 in a voice that I knew was half entreating. 
 " Speak out plainly." 
 
 " Don't make a scene," he said. "We had 
 better change, the subject. I must be going 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 " I don't want to change the subject," I said. 
 
194 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 " I do," he answered, shortly. " Tell me 
 how you spend your time. The Berrys say 
 you are always going out. Turned into a 
 fashionable woman ; eh, Madge ?" 
 
 " No, indeed ; no." 
 
 11 1 prefer to think of you as the little girl 
 I remember at Daffodil years and years ago 
 we won't say 4iow many, since it is a sore 
 subject." 
 
 Nell, that man is like a scourge to me; 
 and yet, unless I loathe him, I love him still. 
 The tears came into my eyes, and I could 
 not help it, while I answered : 
 
 "I am the little girl still, at heart I 
 am" 
 
 " I am glad to hear it," he answered, as if 
 he did not in the least believe me. 
 
 " The girl who spent all those days on the 
 river three years ago." Was it my evil 
 genius that made me say it ? 
 
 "We won't talk of those, if you please," 
 he said, decisively. 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 "You are a good deal changed since then," 
 he answered, in the same tone ; and after 
 a moment's hesitation he added, "and so 
 am I." 
 
 "Why did you come and see me?" I 
 asked, trying to pull myself together. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 195 
 
 " I thought perhaps you would like to see 
 me that I should like to see you." 
 
 " I am glad to see you," I said. " It is 
 always pleasant to see old friends." 
 
 " I am glad you think so. I should have 
 thought you could forget even old friends," 
 he answered, watching me narrowly. 
 
 " Tell me what you mean." 
 
 lt Nothing," he laughed, in a manner that 
 galled me to the quick. 
 
 " Tell me about your work," I asked, try- 
 ing to change the subject. 
 
 "We have not painted our picture yet, 
 Madge," he said, with sudden gravity. 
 
 " We will paint it later on in life," I an- 
 swered, " when we are both married that is, 
 if you like my husband and I like your wife." 
 He did not seem to recognize his own words 
 again. 
 
 " That will never be ; you know that," he 
 said, softly. My heart beat wildly, his man- 
 ner had grown tender. I flogged my soul 
 with the remembrance of his old jibes and 
 taunts, for fear lest I should love him once 
 more should believe in him again. " I won- 
 der why we quarrelled," he added, almost in 
 a whisper. 
 
 " We didn't " 
 
 "Well, we did something that drew us 
 
196 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 apart. Don't you think we were very fool- 
 ish, Madge ?" The scalding tears came into 
 my eyes. I could not answer ; but I gave a 
 little, quick nod. He saw it, and over his 
 face came a look of satisfaction. I loathed 
 him for it, for I knew that he was trying to 
 play fast and loose with me again. But it 
 shall not be, Nell. It shall not; it shall 
 not. I have put one barrier between us ; I 
 will put others. 
 
 He went. But that night he wrote me 
 one of the old fascinating letters letters full 
 of half-suggested tenderness, but in which 
 he said nothing plainly; neither that he loved 
 me, or wanted to be loved ; only indirectly 
 reproached me with being false. It was a 
 L cer that no woman could answer plainly. 
 He knew it when he wrote it. 
 
 But I read it a dozen times, and kissed it, 
 as I have kissed all his letters, even those 
 that cut me sorely ; and I hated and scorned 
 him as it is given to few women to hate and 
 scorn. Last night he dined here, devoting 
 himself to pretty Mrs. Browson, scarcely 
 looking at me. I am only a woman, so I 
 revenged myself by flirting with Sir Noel 
 Franks. He (Sir Noel) leaves town to-mor- 
 row for a fortnight. He asked if he might 
 call here to-day before he went. I knew 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 197 
 
 well enough what he meant, and answered 
 No. I told him to come on his return. 
 Nell, I shall marry him. God help me ! And 
 yet it is the best thing that can happen to 
 me. The other man would break my heart 
 whether I married him or remained single. 
 With Sir Noel I need not remember that I 
 have one. He will make no demands on it; 
 he will satisfy my ambition. I will set my- 
 self a task that will only be finished when 
 he is Prime -minister or Foreign Affairs, 
 which is more picturesque with a policy 
 that shall keep the whole of Europe respect- 
 ful. He will give me money, too, and ease 
 and comfort. And all these will be some- 
 thing, some compensation ; for without them 
 there are many ugly bits, even in the m^st 
 romantic of worlds. I don't want to depend 
 on John always. Besides, I want John to 
 marry. If he does not find a wife for himself, 
 I shall find one for him as soon as I have 
 thrown off Mark's thraldom. 
 
 A busy, thinking, diplomatic life, in which 
 I have forever to be en evidence, up and do- 
 ing, always planning this step and that, and 
 withal keeping note of the intellectual rate 
 about me ; finding out this genius, and pre- 
 senting him to the world, to his own modest 
 dismay; or rescuing that invention from the 
 
XV 
 
 MADGE TO NELLIE 
 
 March qth. 
 
 \ ARK has sent me a note, one of 
 his own vague, incomprehensi- 
 ble ones. He is coming to dine 
 on Wednesday. All the rest 
 you shall know later. 
 One thing more only: James Harrison 
 and Isabel are engaged. How glad I am 
 for him, for perhaps he will be happy at last ! 
 She, too, will be happy, I think. But Aunt 
 Maria's tactics are amusing. Poor, despised 
 James Harrison ! It is a topsy-turvy world, 
 dear Nell. Come and stay in this portion 
 of it with John and me for a bit. 
 
XVI 
 
 MADGE TO JAMES HARRISON 
 
 March 8, 1884. 
 
 EAR COUSIN JAMES, That 
 is what I shall call you in fut- 
 ure. Has it a pleasant sound ? 
 I am delighted, indeed, to 
 hear of your engagement to Is- 
 abel. I had an idea of what might happen, 
 I confess, when I heard that you were stay- 
 ing again at that most beguiling Daffodil. 
 My best and truest and most cordial wishes 
 for your happiness now and always, and for 
 hers, too you must consider this letter to 
 be written to you both. Nothing could have 
 given me greater pleasure than your news 
 this morning. 
 
 I feel sure that you are very lucky, dear 
 cousin, for you have had all sorts of worldly 
 prosperity already, and now you are going 
 to have a dear little wife, and your children 
 
XVIII 
 
 MADGE TO MRS. ROBERT WILLIAMS 
 
 March 2"]th. 
 
 'EAR AUNT MARIA, John 
 would write himself, but he is 
 tremendously busy to-day. We 
 want you to hear from ourselves 
 a bit of news that makes us 
 both, and one other, very happy indeed. 
 John and Nellie Hamilton are engaged. 
 She has been staying with us for a week ; 
 yesterday she left; John took her back to 
 Worcester, and on his return told me that 
 she had promised to be his wife, and soon. 
 Nothing in the world could be so good for 
 him she is one of the sweetest girls on 
 earth, made for him, and he for her. You 
 cannot imagine how glad I am, for Nellie 
 has always been my closest, dearest friend, 
 and now she will be my sister, too. 
 
 I hope Isabel is enjoying the buying of 
 her trousseau, and looks forward with great 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 2OI 
 
 joy to her wedding. We shall be delighted 
 to come to it. We sent yesterday a case of 
 Italian glass, which we lay at the feet of the 
 bride and bridegroom. Isabel will find a 
 note inside. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 MADGE BROOKE. 
 
XIX 
 
 TO NELLIE 
 
 Ap)il 
 
 >T has been great joy to tell every 
 one of your engagement to John, 
 dear Nell; it is greater joy still 
 to see how happy he is. Only I 
 wish you would not wait till 
 September. 
 
 No, dear, of course not I should not 
 think of feeling driven from home because 
 you are coming here. I know well it did 
 not need words to tell me how welcome I 
 should be to you both. But life must and 
 shall take some new shape. Now I cannot 
 trust myself from day to day ; this infatua- 
 tion of love or hate must end. Mark is 
 playing the old game with me sheltering 
 himself behind vague phrases, seeming to be 
 one thing, while all the time something tells 
 me that he is another, and he says no word 
 by which one can make sure. He has either 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 203 
 
 been or written pretty often lately. If he 
 comes, he puts on an air of disapproval ; if 
 he writes, there is a strain of half tenderness, 
 half cynicism in his letters, as though I had 
 treated him badly, almost as if he liked me, 
 yet did not trust me. What does it mean ? 
 He calls me a woman of the world, and 
 sneers at all I do, and listens to all I say 
 with an expression that maddens me. He 
 makes me feel like a culprit ; yet what have 
 I done ? It must and shall end ; that is what 
 I say to myself a hundred times a day. 
 Nothing can set things right between us ; 
 yet every time I see his face and touch his 
 hand I know that he could make me suffer 
 again. MADGE. 
 
XX 
 
 TO NELLIE 
 
 A piil i8M. 
 
 'T is all over. We, the little group 
 that knew each other so well in 
 by-gone days, are all thinking of 
 marrying or being given in 
 marriage. 
 
 This afternoon I accepted Sir Noel ; we 
 afe to be married soon, before the summer 
 is over, so that we may go away (we shall 
 not want much honeymoon) and come back 
 and finish out the season together. 
 
 Mrs. Berry called to-day, just after lunch- 
 eon. She talked a great deal about Mark 
 how he had taken her to task for various 
 things. Why ? Her husband was dead, and 
 he thought that when that was so a woman 
 ought to be set down by her nearest male 
 relation ; he was the nearest one she had, 
 so he did it. Soon her sons would be grown 
 up, then no doubt they would take it upon 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 205 
 
 themselves to direct her. It never seems 
 to occur to her that a woman can steer her 
 own course; she falls in quite naturally with 
 Mark's idea of the inferiority of her sex. 
 
 " Still, one doesn't want to be dictated' to 
 about every little thing," she said, u and 
 that is what he would like to do ; and then 
 he never judges one generously. He always 
 seems to think one's motives are so mean, or 
 so different, at any rate, from what they really 
 are ; I shall pity the woman he marries with 
 all my heart. He is making love to little 
 Kate Seeley now," she added. What a 
 fool I am, Nell, for my heart stood still ! 
 
 " Who is she ?" I asked. 
 
 " She is the daughter of an old school- 
 fellow of mine. He met her at my house 
 and made himself very agreeable he can, 
 you know and Mrs. Seeley invited him, and 
 he went ; but I don't believe that it will 
 really come to anything." 
 
 " Is she pretty ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, and she thinks a good deal of 
 herself ; but she is twenty and fresh ; that is 
 what he likes." It set my teeth on edge. 
 Yes, that is what he likes. Probably he 
 comes here to strengthen his dislikings, and 
 goes to her to strengthen his likings. Oh, 
 Nellie, how I loathe him ! and yet it is only 
 
206 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 yesterday that I covered the hands he had 
 shaken as he said good-bye, with kisses, and 
 listened to his footsteps going down the 
 stairs, as though they were the sweetest 
 music in the world to me, and Heaven 
 help me they were. Those dear footsteps 
 my heart will awake and beat, I think, if 
 some day they pass over the place where I 
 lie buried. 
 
 " Where does Miss Seeley live ?" I asked 
 Mrs. Berry. 
 
 "At Richmond. Probably he only makes 
 her an excuse to go down to the park of an 
 afternoon." 
 
 " Did he tell you about her " 
 
 " No, her mother told me about him. I 
 dare say she would like to marry him, but I 
 don't suppose he means to marry her. He 
 always liked flirting with a girl, you know 
 he never means anything." 
 
 " No, of course not," I said. " He never 
 means anything." 
 
 " He likes to amuse himself ; but he nev- 
 er seems to think much of any one. -I don't 
 believe he will ever care for any one." 
 
 I was glad she told me that ; it hardened 
 me, and made me shudder to remember how 
 he had made love to me in by-gone days. 
 What a degradation it was ! 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 2O7 
 
 Sir Noel came an hour after she had gone. 
 I welcomed him with thankfulness ; I could 
 have put out my hands to him like a drown- 
 ing woman. A single glance at his face 
 showed me why he had come. His manner 
 was perfect ; it is always excessively courte- 
 ous and considerate towards women, and it 
 has, besides, a simple straightforwardness 
 that makes one breathe freely. He looks 
 good, too I felt that as I looked up at his 
 face. The sight of him, with all the thoughts 
 and feelings that were upon me, was like a 
 rush of cool air after a stifling madness of 
 years. 
 
 " Miss Brooke," he said, when we had got 
 through our greetings, " I have not come to 
 pay you an ordinary visit ; but one on a 
 matter of the greatest importance that is, 
 to me." He spoke with extreme deference 
 all through the interview he treated me 
 with more and more deference, as he became 
 more and more convinced that his suit would 
 prosper. " I have thought a good deal of 
 how to put into words what I wish to say to 
 you into the words most Lkely to gain your 
 sympathy and assent; but I am afraid my 
 diplomatic experiences have mostly been 
 with my own sex, and I may spoil my own 
 cause by " 
 
208 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 He stopped for a moment, and I looked at 
 him critically ; tall and thin, almost soldier- 
 ly in his bearing, his voice a little low and 
 excessively refined in its tone. There was 
 restfulness in the thought of giving my weary 
 life over to him, yet I thought of Mark's 
 grave, almost cynical face oh, my love, and 
 dream, and torturer, whom I am forever 
 driving out of my life, what fiend is it, I 
 wonder, that lodges in your soul and makes 
 you so different from what surely God meant 
 you to be? If only I might respect you, 
 might think of you as even the vaguest 
 ideal, though I never saw you again in this 
 wide world, I could be thankful and satis- 
 fied. It is the scorn that kills me. 
 
 But there stood Sir Noel, for he had risen 
 before me, and there stood I, leaning against 
 the mantel-piece, looking idly at the china on 
 it ; and he had to be answered. 
 
 "Diplomacy is an art that men usually 
 try to keep apart from women," I said. 
 
 " You are right," he answered, gravely, 
 " and I will put what I have to say into the 
 simplest words I know. Miss Brooke, will 
 you do me the honor to become my wife ?" 
 His voice was coldly eager, there was anx- 
 iety on his face, greater courtesy than ever 
 in the very attitude of his head ; but of sen- 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 2Op 
 
 timent, of passion, not a sign. How good it 
 was to see it ! I felt as if all the love I had 
 given in past years nay, all the love that 
 had been given me, too was being laid in its 
 grave, and that these precise words were the 
 will-o'-the-wisp that danced over it. I could 
 almost hear some ghostly music, and fancy 
 that it came from a distant empty church, that 
 dead fingers touched the keys and brought 
 it forth. But outwardly my manner was cold 
 and self-possessed, as courteous, too, as his 
 own ; we were a truly well-mannered couple 
 as we stood and arranged our marriage. 
 
 " Why do you want to marry me ?" I asked, 
 curiously. 
 
 " I have the greatest admiration and re- 
 spect for you. I should be most proud 
 and " I do not know how he went on ; 
 all the time I was looking coldly on at the 
 funeral of my life's romance ; unknown to 
 himself, this middle-aged diplomat with the 
 thin face and iron-gray hair was conducting 
 its funeral service. Suddenly I remembered 
 the torment I had suffered once before when I 
 had not dared to tell Austin Brian of the past. 
 
 " I have a regard for you, Sir Noel," I 
 said, and heard with surprise my own voice 
 falter, but I could not steady it ; " and I am 
 an ambitious woman." 
 
210 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 "Ah !" he gasped, faintly. 
 
 " I could only be satisfied with a man 
 who was ambitious, too whose career I 
 might perhaps help, as well as share." 
 
 " It is what I desire," he said, in a low 
 voice, as though he were making a response 
 in church. His voice will sound like that, 
 perhaps, when we are being married. 
 
 "But I want you to know," I went on, 
 timidly, " that though I like you, I am not in 
 love." I felt ashamed of the foolish word 
 the moment it was spoken it seemed so 
 foreign to the matter with which we were 
 concerning ourselves. 
 
 " I am too old to ask for that," he said, 
 with a little sigh. He is only fifty, Nellie ; 
 men are loved at that age, nay, long past it 
 at any age ; it is a question of the man 
 himself, not of his years ; but I thought of 
 the story Lady Mary had told me and un- 
 derstood. " I do not even offer it to you," 
 he went on, simply, " only my regard, my 
 admiration, to make you my first and great- 
 est consideration in life more is beyond 
 me ; it is too late." There was a world of 
 by-gones in his voice ; I knew that he was 
 remembering, and was touched, more than I 
 should have been had he professed to care 
 for me, perhaps. Then I let go myself, and 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 211 
 
 was given over to the fates that make one 
 say and do what they will as they weave 
 one's history. 
 
 " But I want you to know " I heard my- 
 self saying with a strange manner that was 
 not mine " to know that in the past there 
 were days when when " I rested my 
 head down on the edge of the shelf, and 
 Could not go on. He put his hand on mine. 
 
 " My dear lady," he said, gently, almost 
 sadly, "I am asking you to give me your 
 future, to share mine. Our pasts are our 
 own. I cannot unbury mine ; I do not ask 
 to know yours," and he was silent. 
 
 I looked round the room; it wore a strange 
 air, as though it understood. Do you know 
 the suggestion of still life, of listening that 
 mere chairs and tables sometimes seem to 
 have ? I glanced swiftly at all the familiar 
 things. Yes, this was the end of the story. 
 Never through all the years should I know 
 should I hear oh, Nellie, to have saun- 
 tered through the woods with Mark just 
 once more, though it had cost me all the old 
 sorrow and bitterness over again nay, twice 
 again ! I would have consented to bear it 
 gladly at that moment when I was put- 
 ting all the possibilities forever away from 
 me. Then I looked up at Sir Noel and 
 
212 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 put out my hand. He took it almost rever- 
 ently. 
 
 " Am I to understand " he asked. 
 
 " Yes," I said, and he took the other hand, 
 too, and bending down kissed them both, 
 and that was all. 
 
 I sat by the fire for two hours after he 
 had gone, thinking it all over. The end had 
 come, and for one last hour I would love 
 Mark again, and then forever let him go. 
 Yes, love him, though I loathed him too, 
 and knew him to be a coward, as men are 
 sometimes with a cowardice they only make 
 known to women. John said the other day 
 with a reluctance that showed it was forced 
 from him, " I think Mark is rather a cad, 
 you know." I said nothing, for it was 
 true; yet, oh, the hardness of tearing his 
 fingers from about my heart ! I shall have 
 money with Sir Noel heaps of it position, 
 comfort, and ease all my life long. I shall 
 be a personage more and more, for he is a 
 man who will never be satisfied if he does 
 not surely and steadily press forward. But, 
 oh, to have been and had none of these 
 things and to have married Mark. He lives 
 in lodgings, pays his landlady two or three 
 pounds a week, perhaps, and grumbles at 
 her cooking; yet to have shared that life 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 213 
 
 with him instead of the one to which I am 
 giving myself no, not myself, but some one 
 who has taken its place. Or if he had been 
 poorest poor, a laborer on the estate of the 
 man I am going to marry, and we had lived 
 in one of the little cottages, I could have 
 been the happiest, most blessed woman 
 alive. To have cooked his food and washed 
 his clothes, have waited on him, watched for 
 him, obeyed him. I would not have com- 
 plained though he had been cruel, though 
 he had sworn at me and cuffed me. I would 
 have wept in secret and waited for that dear 
 moment when he forgave me, and I might 
 hear him say he loved me again and feel 
 that it was heaven. But there there it 
 is all finished, let it be. 
 
 I do not know how late it was when Janet 
 came in. 
 
 " I am going to marry Sir Noel," I told 
 her. 
 
 " Thank God," she said, " for he looks like 
 a true man and honest gentleman ;" and she 
 came and kissed me and smoothed my hair, 
 and I wished that she were smoothing it for 
 my coffin. Yet I am content, and would 
 have nothing different from what it is. 
 
 Good -night, dear Nell, I am very tired. 
 Perhaps I may sleep. MADGE. 
 
XXI 
 
 TO NELLIE 
 
 April 2$d. 
 
 ,EFORE I go to sleep I must tell 
 you about this day, dear Nell. 
 It finishes all. First, know that 
 things are to be hurried on ; we 
 are to be married Noel and I 
 on June ist. It is to be as smart a 
 function as we can make it but of course 
 John has told you, and you must come up 
 as soon as you can and help me. Now for 
 the rest. 
 
 The morning after I wrote last my en- 
 gagement was announced in the Post. It 
 brought quantities of letters, of course 
 among them one from Mark. 
 
 'My heart sank when I saw his letter ; I 
 would not open it, I decided ; after all, it 
 was an example that he had set me. So 
 swiftly I put it into the fire and watched it 
 burn, and felt my heart lighten as it turned 
 to tinder. 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN 215 
 
 Two days went by. Another letter. Dog- 
 gedly I put it into the fire again and held it 
 down. To-day he himself came. It is always 
 the same ; my heart beat quickly as he en- 
 tered ; my voice was no longer under my 
 control. Shall I ever get rid of this mad- 
 ness ? 
 
 "Why didn't you answer my letters?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " I burned them, I am tired of congratu- 
 lations," I said. 
 
 "I didn't send any," he answered, and 
 looked at me in the old tormenting manner. 
 " I told you the other day that you were in- 
 constant," he went on ; " now, you see, I was 
 right." 
 
 I turned and faced him. 
 
 " To whom have I been inconstant ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " You had better answer that question 
 yourself." 
 
 His fencing made me ache with scorn. 
 
 " Have I been inconstant to you ?" 
 
 "Well, yes, I should say so." 
 
 That was enough ; I feared he might go, 
 so I stood up and spoke quickly. 
 
 "It is false," I said. "Let us speak 
 plainly, while the chance is with us, and this 
 last time that I hope we may ever speak at 
 
2l6 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 all. I was never bound to you never ; you 
 never said a word to me never one that 
 bound you to me or me to you." 
 
 "Words !" he said, cynically. 
 
 "Yes words. All the bonds that the 
 world recognizes are made of words. Long 
 ago, when I was a girl, you made love to 
 me ; you kissed me that night at Poona." 
 
 "Yes," he said, with a satisfaction that 
 was gall to me and yet spurred me to go on, 
 "I did." 
 
 "I thought you loved me then, and on 
 board ship, and afterwards in London. Do 
 you remember when we went to the studio 
 that first day of all" 
 
 " Perfectly," he said, calmly. 
 
 "You made love to me then, and wrung 
 admissions from me, though you made none 
 yourself; you took care to make none. You 
 were always cautious ; I have seen that in 
 looking back; but I remember how you 
 tortured me, saying I did not care for you, 
 till I cried at last, 'I do, I do, dreadfully !' 
 I wish my tongue had been burned before it 
 said the words." 
 
 " They were not true, I suppose ?" he 
 asked, politely, with a shade of curiosity in 
 his voice. 
 
 " They were, indeed ; for I did love you 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 2i; 
 
 all those days, and months and months be- 
 fore, and long, long afterwards, till oh, I 
 don't know till when. And all that summer 
 on the river, when we were together every 
 day, and you treated me as if we were never 
 to be apart again, and spoke of the future 
 as if we were going to spend it together " 
 
 " Precisely," he remarked. 
 
 " Of course I loved you with all my heart 
 and soul, with all my life. I should have 
 been like one of those poor women we are 
 not allowed to speak to openly if I could 
 be all that I was to you and not care. Did 
 you think me bad and fast and wicked, since 
 you could treat me so ? I have often won- 
 dered" 
 
 " No, I did not," he interrupted. 
 
 " Men don't make love to girls they have 
 known all their lives, as you had known me, 
 as you made love to me ; they don't treat 
 them as you did me, unless they love them 
 and want to marry them." 
 
 " Perhaps I did," he said, calmly. 
 
 " Or unless they think them what I have 
 said. Did you think me that ? For I was 
 not, Mark ; I was too innocent then to know 
 right from wrong, and trusted you wholly. 
 When the summer was over you grew cool ; 
 you were tired of me ; you had had enough " 
 
2Io LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 "Perhaps," he said. 
 
 "You talked of my marrying some day; 
 you hoped I should be married to some one 
 who would be as fond and proud of me as 
 he ought to be ; you talked of your future 
 travels, and of our lives as separate ways. 
 It nearly broke my heart : the shame, the 
 sorrow of it, and the misery that was mine." 
 
 " Well ?" he said, in an interested voice, 
 waiting for me to go on. 
 
 " I wrote to you once about the picture 
 we were to paint together ; you replied that 
 we would do it further on in life, when we 
 were both married, if I liked your wife and 
 you liked my husband." 
 
 " It would hardly have come off other- 
 wise, "he said. 
 
 " You left me ; you were cold and distant ; 
 you gave me to understand that together our 
 lives had finished. When you came to Lon- 
 don, after months of absence, you did not 
 even come near me. Then one night, in 
 sheer despair and misery how, God knows 
 I got engaged to Austin Brian. I wrote 
 and told you, and could say by heart every 
 word of the letter you sent back ; you ad- 
 vised me to keep to the engagement, though 
 I had told you how it fretted me. You 
 were sorry when it was broken off, and all 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 2Ip 
 
 the time you never made a sign by which I 
 could suppose that you cared. Long after- 
 wards you met me and taunted me with 
 having been false to you, but in roundabout 
 ways, so that I could not speak out. Now 
 you have come back, you have been about 
 the 'house, you have called me inconstant 
 and so on ; but you have made no sign of 
 caring for me, and now again you come and 
 taunt me. Oh, it is too much ! It was only 
 the other day, too, that I heard you were 
 making love to some one else some one at 
 Richmond." 
 
 " She is very pretty," he remarked, calmly. 
 
 " Go to her, and leave me to my life. I 
 loved you in by-gone days God knows I 
 did, Mark. I was not a wicked woman ; I 
 only gave my life and heart and soul to the 
 man who was all the world to me, for you 
 have been that ; I would have died for you 
 in days gone by, and I should be ashamed, 
 indeed, if it had not been so. It is my justi- 
 fication. I don't hate you now, but in my 
 heart I have a scorn for you that is bound- 
 less a scorn that shakes me." 
 
 He hardly seemed to hear me. 
 
 " I really was fond of you in the studio 
 days," he said, reflectively ; "and afterwards 
 by the river, too ; but I grew tired of that be- 
 
220 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 fore the summer was over. I was bored. 
 I remember seeing a girl once with very 
 bright eyes ; she was landing just as we put 
 off, and I thought how much an hour or two 
 with her would pick me up, and then the 
 winter after that you did not look well you 
 went off rather ; you were getting older, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " Oh, Mark, was it just my youth and 
 bloom that took your fancy? You never 
 had any real love for me never any in the 
 world ?" 
 
 " Of course one likes a pretty girl," he an- 
 swered. "And, then, I am not sentimental; 
 love is not in my way, and marrying isn't." 
 
 " But your idea was that I should keep 
 true to you, while you should in no way be 
 bound in no way be true to me." 
 
 " Precisely; that is what I meant," he said, 
 with a smile. Then he went on, reflectively : 
 " But I certainly liked you better than any 
 woman I had ever seen at one time, and 
 perhaps I do now I don't know or wish to 
 know. Still, since I have returned, I must 
 frankly own that I have found you thor- 
 oughly disagreeable, and really I don't see 
 the least use in our going on." 
 
 " Going on with what ?" 
 
 "Well, withwith nothing." 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 221 
 
 " If you did care for me in by-gone days, 
 why didn't you say so ?" 
 
 " I suppose I didn't want to be answered." 
 
 " Or raise a finger to prevent my marrying 
 or getting engaged ?" 
 
 " I did not care to." 
 
 "Then why have you taunted me with 
 being false to you, and what have you to do 
 with my future, or I with yours ?" 
 
 " Nothing," he said again, with the calm- 
 ness and the smile that maddened me ; "you 
 are taking an old gentleman with an iron- 
 gray mustache to yourself. He will have 
 to do with your future, I suppose." 
 
 " While you make love to the young lady 
 at Richmond." 
 
 "Probably; till I grow tired of her. Then 
 I must find some one else who is pretty." 
 
 I could bear it no longer. 
 
 "Mark," I said, desperately, "go away; 
 please go away. I cannot bear it any lon- 
 ger." 
 
 "Oh, certainly," he answered, with a look 
 of almost amusement. " It is not very po- 
 lite to treat an old friend so ; but perhaps 
 you are expecting your new friend 
 
 " Yes, perhaps," I said, entreatingly ; " only 
 go. I cannot bear it any longer." 
 
 " Well, good-bye ; your manners are very 
 
222 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 
 
 bad, that I must say. I hope they will im- 
 prove when you are married." He shook 
 hands. I listened again, that last, last time 
 as he went down the stairs for he shall 
 never come up them more but I listened 
 now with a sigh of relief, of thankfulness. 
 I covered my face with my hands, and a 
 strange peace, an almost joy, stole into my 
 heart. Dear God, how good you have been 
 to me ! If I had married him I should have 
 died of loathing and of scorn. It is all over, 
 dear Nell. This is the end of the story. 
 
 24th. 
 
 I am so glad to hear that you and John 
 are to be married a month sooner. You 
 will enjoy Switzerland. 
 
 No, dear ; Noel and I are going to Paris 
 after our wedding on the ist of June. Some 
 one offered us a country-seat to honeymoon 
 in, but we declined. The country is for lov- 
 ers, not for him and me ; we want a gay city 
 like Paris, with plays to go to and dinners 
 to eat. We shall be excellent companions. 
 I look forward to it I am almost merry. 
 Oh, Nellie, I am going to be content ! 
 
XXII 
 
 MADGE TO NELL 
 
 (AFTER FOUR YEARS) 
 
 Sept. 17, 1888. 
 
 EAREST NELL, We were so 
 sorry not to see you with John. 
 We will take excellent care of 
 him, and send him back on 
 Tuesday with as many birds as 
 he will carry. I long to see you, dear. We 
 do not go to town till the session begins, 
 but you and I will have a pleasant winter, 
 and be much together. Kiss the baby, and 
 tell little May that I think of her. 
 
 There is something I have often wanted 
 to ask you ; I will do so now. It is, did you 
 destroy all those foolish letters I wrote you 
 years ago about Mark Cuthbertson ? I hope 
 you did; tell me when you write. What a 
 mad infatuation it was ! Sometimes I look 
 back on it with horror. It was like a mad- 
 ness. How thankful I am that it ended at 
 
224 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 last ! It might easily have broken my heart, 
 or made me a bad and desperate woman ; 
 but it did neither. It only made me into 
 somebody else, or into another self, who 
 remembers the old one with wonder, and 
 shrinks now and then even yet from the 
 memory of the pain she suffered, so keen 
 it was and terrible. 
 
 I told you the history of it all with so 
 many details that you ought to know the 
 climax. I could not bring myself to men- 
 tion it on my wedding-day, and I have never 
 really had a chance since you and John 
 have been such gad-abouts since your mar- 
 riage. It is an absurd climax I have 
 laughed at it since, but I thought it very 
 tragic at the time. Three or four days be- 
 fore my marriage Mark sent me a wedding 
 present. It was a little ebony clock like 
 that which used to strike the hours in the 
 studio, while the twilight stole in and we sat 
 on the bamboo chairs watching the crack- 
 ling wood-fire. The sight of it stupefied me, 
 and made me shudder ; it thrilled me with a 
 something that was almost fright. I thought 
 at first that I would send it back, but I could 
 not : to keep it was impossible. I walked 
 up and down looking at it half scared. What 
 follows is like a farce. 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 22$ 
 
 I wrapped it up again and went to the 
 place where we had spent that happy sum- 
 mer. I walked from the train towards the 
 river, past the empty cottage where Janet 
 and I had stayed. I stopped at the Swan, 
 and saying that I wanted to dig up a root, 
 borrowed a trowel. Then I took a boat and 
 rowed to the island where we had often gone 
 in by-gone days. I made the boat fast, land- 
 ed, threaded my way through the underwood 
 to the oak-tree beneath which we had spent 
 so many hours. I dug a hole, deep deep, 
 it was the hardest work my hands ever did, 
 and then I buried Mark's present. I cov- 
 ered it tightly down and turfed the ground 
 over again. It is there now, I suppose I 
 wonder how it looks. Before I put it into 
 its grave I wound it up. I heard it strike 
 as I filled up the hole with earth, and the 
 muffled sound frightened me. Now and 
 then I think of it buried in the ground un- 
 der the oak-tree on the silent island ; and I 
 get a fantastic notion that one day, perhaps, 
 the world as it goes round and round may 
 somehow turn the wheels of the poor little 
 clock and set it going again, and when 
 that is so, I may love Mark once more, 
 and he will love me back again : but never 
 till then. I only think of the clock, never 
 15 
 
226 LOVE LETTERS OF 
 
 of him, and, thank God, Nell, I am con- 
 tent. 
 
 Yes, you are right, I am proud of Noel. 
 We keep our compact ; love and sentiment 
 are ghosts to us both, and we have nothing 
 in common with ghosts ; but we are excellent 
 friends and good companions. I like my 
 big London house and the amusing mixed 
 parties it is the fashion to give. I think 
 sometimes of the dim crowd on the pave- 
 ment outside, and wish I could bring that 
 in, too. I like our little dinners to Tories 
 past their prime, or to Radicals who are 
 coming on, or the big ones which are care- 
 fully arranged so as to contain many ele- 
 ments. We went to the New Club one night 
 last season did I tell you ? but in spite 
 of the people we met and knew, all trying 
 to look rowdy, we could not stand it, and 
 came away. Yes, I am satisfied ; more and 
 more ambitious for Noel ; proud of my salon 
 and the men on both sides of the way who 
 come to it ; gradually it will grow to be a 
 power. 
 
 A child ? Children are very well for 
 lovers like you and John. For Noel and 
 me well, he has a nephew, a tall, thin boy, 
 who is now at Eton. He will be made 
 much of later. And there is your little 
 
A WORLDLY WOMAN 227 
 
 May ; some day, perhaps, I may be her 
 chaperon if you will let me, and I will keep 
 all but eligible men far away from her. What 
 else ? Oh, dear Nell, there is nothing else ; 
 but I am satisfied. 
 
ON THE WANE: A SENTIMENTAL 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 HE 
 
 ST. JAMES'S STREET, W., 
 Monday, June 2$d. 
 
 ,Y DEAR AND PRECIOUS 
 ONE, This is only a line to 
 tell you that I shall come and 
 dine with you and your mummy 
 this evening, at the usual time. 
 I have been thinking, my sweet, that we had 
 much better be married soon. What is the 
 good of waiting beyond the winter anyway ? 
 We must make arrangements for the mum- 
 my, or why could she not come to us ? I 
 shall talk to you seriously about it to-night, 
 so be prepared. I feel as if we can't go on 
 
230 ON THE WANE: 
 
 living at different ends of London much 
 longer ; besides, what is the good of waiting ? 
 No more time, dear, for I must post this 
 at once. You had my long letter this morn- 
 ing. Yours was just like you. I think you 
 are the greatest darling on earth, Gwen 
 I have taken it very badly, you see and I 
 have got something for you when I come 
 that I think you will like. Till then be good 
 and love me. Meet me down the lane if 
 you can, like an angel no, like yourself, 
 which will be better. 
 
 Your devoted JIM. 
 
 II 
 
 HE 
 
 Ttiesday A T ight,June 
 You were so very sweet last night, be- 
 loved ; I do nothing but think of you. I do 
 trust you, darling, absolutely; and if we must 
 wait till Christmas, why, we must. But you 
 will come to me then, won't you ? and we 
 will be the two happiest people on earth. I 
 can't rest till I have seen you again. I have 
 been thinking that if you met me to-morrow 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 231 
 
 at four at the Finchley Road Station we 
 could have a long walk, and drive back in a 
 hansom in the cool of the evening in time 
 for dinner. Shall we ? If so, come in your 
 big hat and the white dress, for that is how 
 you look prettiest, you gypsy. 
 
 Your devoted JIM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 SHE 
 
 HAMPSTEAD, 
 
 Wednesday Morning, June 2$th. 
 
 ONLY to say of course I will, darling. I 
 will do anything you like. You looked so 
 handsome last night that I was "shocking" 
 proud of you, as you would say. Mother 
 says the sound of you in the house makes 
 the whole place joyful. It does. I shall 
 love a long walk dear you, to think of it. 
 I'll be there in the big hat and the white 
 dress, according to the orders of His Majesty 
 the King. His very loving 
 
 GWEN. 
 
232 ON THE WANE: 
 
 IV 
 
 HE 
 
 (A MONTH LATER) 
 
 Wednesday, July 
 
 DEAREST CHILD, Sorry I could not come 
 yesterday afternoon ; it's an awful pull up 
 that hill, and the day was so blazing hot 
 that I confess I shirked it. You understand, 
 don't you, darling ? I'll come and dine on 
 Friday anyway. My mother says you must 
 go and stay with her this autumn. She is 
 enjoying her month in town, I think. Good- 
 bye, my child, no more time. I'm awfully 
 vexed now I didn't charter a hansom yester- 
 day to go up that blessed hill on the top of 
 which it pleases you to live, or climb it on 
 all fours, for I want to see you badly. I 
 have been very busy, and naturally, while 
 my mother is here, I have less time than 
 usual. Your loving 
 
 JIM. 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 233 
 
 SHE 
 
 Wednesday Night. 
 
 YES, old darling, I quite understand, and 
 I'll count the hours till Friday. Of course I 
 was disappointed yesterday, but I tried to 
 console myself by thinking that you might 
 have got sunstroke if you had come ; and 
 then in the evening, when I felt very down- 
 hearted, I read over a heap of your letters 
 I mean those you sent me in the winter, 
 when you first loved me. They were so 
 very loving that they made me quite happy 
 again. Am I just the same to you ? I don't 
 know why I ask it ; something makes me do 
 so. Do you remember that night we walked 
 up and down the garden till nearly* twelve 
 o'clock and talked of all manner of serious 
 things ? I often think of it. You said that 
 when we were together we would work and 
 read and try to understand the meaning of 
 many things that seemed like lesson-books 
 in the wide world's school, and that now, in 
 the holiday-time, we did not want to think 
 
234 N THE WANE : 
 
 about. The lesson-time would surely come, 
 you said, so that we need not grudge our- 
 selves our laughter and our joy. I remember 
 that you said, too, that work was the most 
 important thing in life, and I have been 
 wondering if that is so. It seems rather a 
 cold gospel. But perhaps you are right. 
 Your love, for instance, will only make my 
 happiness ; but your work may help the 
 whole world. Is that what you meant, dar- 
 ling? All this because of that happy night 
 when you took my face between your hands 
 and looked at me almost solemnly and said, 
 " This dear face is my life's history, thank 
 God for that." I love you so oh, so much 
 when I think of your voice but I love you 
 always. GWEN. 
 
 VI 
 
 HE 
 
 Thursday Morning. 
 
 You DEAR SWEET, You are a most 
 serious person, and a darling and a goose, 
 and I long to kiss you; but look here, 
 Gwennie, I can't come Friday either. Mars- 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 235 
 
 den insists on having half-a-dozen men to 
 dine with him at the Club, and there must 
 I be in the midst of them. Will Saturday 
 do? Nice day Saturday, comes before 
 Sunday, you know : best preparation in the 
 world for it (seeing that I shall be made to 
 go to church next morning and stay till the 
 end of the sermpn) will be seeing you the 
 night before. I think I shall have to take 
 a run to Clifton for a little bit next week ; if 
 so I shall miss your garden-party, I fear ; 
 but we'll talk about this on Saturday. 
 Yours ever and ever as you know. 
 
 JIM. 
 
 Work ? Of course we must work. It is 
 one's rent in the world, and honest folk 
 must pay their way. Your work is to love 
 me. 
 
 VII 
 
 SHE 
 
 Thursday Night. 
 
 YES, Jim dear, and I will always do it. 
 Come on Saturday. I shall be miserable if 
 you are not at our garden-party, and fear I 
 
236 ON THE WANE: 
 
 shall hardly have heart to go on with it. I 
 am a selfish thing ; but as you say, we will 
 talk of it on Saturday. Your loving 
 
 GWEN. 
 
 VIII 
 
 HE 
 
 (A Tele grant) 
 
 Saturday, 7.30 P.M. 
 
 AWFULLY sorry. Relations turned up. 
 Insist on my dining. Will come Monday. 
 
 JIM. 
 
 IX 
 
 SHE 
 
 Sunday, July 2gt/i. 
 
 OF course it could not be helped, dear- 
 est, yet when your telegram came I sat 
 down and wept as devoutly as if I had been 
 by the waters of Babylon. Relations are 
 exigeants, I know, and you were quite right 
 to go to them, yet I did so long for you. 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 237 
 
 Our little feast was ready, and I was ready, 
 in the blue dress that you said I looked 
 pretty in. I had pinned a rose on my 
 shoulder, and wondered if you would pull 
 it leaf by leaf away; you did last time, 
 do you remember? I shuddered while I 
 thought of it. It was like but I will not 
 even write it. Oh, Jim dear, how well we 
 can sometimes make ourselves shiver at the 
 impossibilities ! I know you love me, but 
 the little things that have kept you away 
 from me oftener than usual lately make me 
 foolish and nervous ; they are like thongs 
 that threaten to become a whip, and would 
 if you stayed away too long. But you won't ? 
 You know that I love you, as you do me, 
 and that I am weaker and cannot bear the 
 days apart as you can, you who have many 
 things to fill your life, while I have only you 
 to fill mine only you, for whom I would 
 die, and think death sweet if it did you even 
 the least little good. 
 
 When I was ready last night I went out 
 and walked up and down under the veranda, 
 before the windows. I looked in at the 
 drawing-room, and thought of how we 
 would sit there on the little low sofa after 
 dinner, watching the shadows that always 
 seem to come stealing through the fir-trees ; 
 
238 ON THE WANE : 
 
 and of how we would talk, as we always do, 
 of the days when we wondered and guessed 
 about each other, and were afraid and hoped ; 
 or of how we would plan our future life and 
 arrange the things we would some day do 
 together. The dining-room window was 
 open, and I looked in there, too, at our table 
 spread, at the great roses in the bowl, and 
 the candles ready for lighting. I thought 
 of how you would sit at the head, as though 
 you were master already, and of how, when 
 we had nearly come to an end, dear mother 
 would rise, as she always does, and say, 
 " You will not mind if I go, dears ; I am 
 very tired ?" and you would open the door 
 and she would pass out, giving you a little 
 smile as she went ; and then you would 
 come back and stoop and kiss me and say, 
 " My darling," just as you always do, and 
 each time seems like a first time. But you 
 did not come, and did not come and then 
 there was the telegram. I know the quick, 
 loud sound, the clangingness that only the 
 telegraph boy puts into the bell, as well as 
 I know your footstep. Sometimes my heart 
 bounds to it ; it leaps to heaven for a mo- 
 ment, for it means that you are coming; 
 and sometimes it sinks. Oh, my darling, if 
 you only knew how it almost stands still 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 239 
 
 sometimes ! it did last night for it means 
 that you are not coming. 
 
 Jim, dear, I am a fool. I know you could 
 not help it. But I love you dearly, and will 
 all my life. I kiss this paper because your 
 hands will touch it. Good-night, my own. 
 
 GWEN. 
 
 HE 
 
 Monday Morning. 
 
 You SWEET THING, Your letter almost 
 makes me ashamed of myself. You do love 
 me, Gwen. and I am not half good enough 
 for you. I wonder how I dared go in for a 
 girl like you, or what I ever did to please 
 God that He should give me a love like 
 yours. I often think that you will be awfully 
 disappointed when you get me every day of 
 your life and find out what a commonplace 
 beggar I am. You are certain to find that 
 out anyhow. And yet, why should you? 
 Does not Browning say : 
 
 "God be thanked, the meanest of His creatures, 
 Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
 One to show a woman when he loves her." 
 
240 ON THE WANE : 
 
 I don't suppose that I am the meanest of 
 His creatures, but I am not as good as you, 
 dear. There is a sort of looking-aheadness 
 towards Heaven in you that is wholly lack- 
 ing in me. I have felt that very keenly 
 lately, and wondered whether any vanity 
 would let me stand being made the subject 
 of your being disillusioned about mankind 
 later on. There is one thing certain : what- 
 ever happens to us in the future, we have 
 the memory of good love behind us ; for I 
 have loved you, Gwen dear ; always remem- 
 ber that. 
 
 I will corne up this evening, and we will 
 have a happy time together. I think I 
 must go to Clifton, after all. Mrs. Seafield 
 wants me to help them through with Tom- 
 my's coming of age. Awfully nice woman, 
 Mrs. Seafield, and one ought to encourage 
 nice people by doing what they wish occa- 
 sionally. Be good. Don't get low-spirited 
 or entertain ghosts unawares, or do anything 
 but love me till I come, and then I will tell 
 you that I love you, which will be better 
 than saying it here. 
 
 I think you ought to go away for. a bit ; 
 you strike me, from your 'letters, as being a 
 little strained and run down. It's all my 
 fault, isn't it, dearest ? For I prevented you 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 241 
 
 from going to Italy last winter by making 
 you be engaged to me ; and then we didn't 
 want to put the big distance between us. 
 Till to-night, Your loving JIM. 
 
 XI 
 
 HE 
 
 (A Telegram} 
 
 CLIFTON, August ^d. 
 
 No time to write. Garden-party, etc., 
 Friday. Letter to-morrow. Staying till 
 Wednesday. JIM. 
 
 XII 
 
 SHE 
 
 Tuesday, Attgust "jth. 
 
 DEAREST JIM, I have been hoping and 
 hoping to hear from you. Is anything the 
 matter, darling ? Are you ill ? Has a letter 
 miscarried ? Are you angry with me ? I 
 cannot believe that four whole days have 
 
 16 
 
242 ON THE WANE: 
 
 passed without a word, and yet I know that 
 I am foolish to worry myself, for this silence 
 is probably due to some trivial accident. 
 But you are all the wide world to me you 
 and my mother ; and in these last days apart 
 you seem to have tightened and tightened 
 round my heart till I cannot even breathe 
 without thinking of you, and the least little 
 bit of fear about you makes me miserable. 
 
 I am very foolish, Jim, for on Monday 
 night after you had gone I sat up till it was 
 nearly daylight thinking over your words and 
 looks. I fancied they had been different 
 that you had been different altogether lately. 
 Perhaps it is only a calm setting in, a re- 
 action after the wild love-making of the 
 winter, when you seemed unable to live a 
 single day without me. It could not be al- 
 ways like that ; I knew it even at the time. 
 Perhaps I fancy it all ; write and tell me 
 that I do. But I have felt since Monday as 
 if only the ghost of your love remained to 
 me. You didn't seem so glad to be with 
 me ; you did not look at me so often, and 
 you broke off to talk of outside things just 
 when I thought your heart was full of me 
 and love of me. 
 
 Your mother came yesterday. She did 
 not stay long. She did not ask me to go 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 243 
 
 to her in the autumn. She said that she 
 had heard from you, and my heart gave a 
 throb of pain, knowing that I had not had 
 a line. In her manner she seemed to di- 
 vine that you had changed. I went up- 
 stairs after she had gone and prayed that 
 if it were so I might never know it. But 
 for my poor mummy I could have killed 
 myself, so as to die in the midst of uncer- 
 tainty that was torture, and yet joy com- 
 pared to the knowledge that might come 
 the knowledge that your love had gone 
 from me. 
 
 But to-night I am ashamed of all my 
 foolishness, all my fears, and reproaching 
 myself for doubting you ; for I know that 
 you love me I do indeed. I live over all 
 your words and looks. Do you remember 
 that night by the pond we stole out by the 
 garden-gate when you said nothing could 
 ever part us ; that I was never, never to 
 doubt you, no matter if you yourself had 
 made me do so for the moment ? You 
 made me swear I never would. You look- 
 ed down and said, " My sweet wife," and 
 made me say, " Yes, Jim, your wife " after 
 you, because you wanted me to feel that the 
 tie between us could never be broken. It 
 is the memory of those words, of that night, 
 
244 ON THE WANE: 
 
 that helps me through the misery and wick- 
 ed doubting of you now. Come and beat 
 me for the doubting with a thick, thick 
 stick, and I will count each stroke as joy, 
 and love you more and more for every one 
 that falls. It is the memory of that night, 
 too, that makes me send you this that 
 gives me courage to pour out all my heart 
 to you. The days have passed for make- 
 believes between us ; I cannot pretend to 
 you ; I am yours, your own, and very own. 
 Write me one line and make me happy 
 again, and forgive me, or scold me, or do 
 what you will, so that you love me tell 
 me that, and I shall be once more what I 
 have been all these months, the happiest, 
 most blessed girl in the whole wide world. 
 
 GWEN. 
 
 XIII 
 
 HE 
 
 Wednesday, August S///. 
 
 DEAREST GWEN, What a sentimental 
 child you are ! I have been busy : tennis, 
 dances, garden-party, picnic, Tommy com- 
 ing of age, and speeches all sorts of things 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 245 
 
 crowded into a week. No time for letter- 
 writing. It is very jolly here, and every- 
 thing uncommonly well managed. Nice 
 people in the neighborhood ; dinner-party 
 last night; took in Ethel Bertram hand- 
 some girl, beautiful dark eyes, said to be 
 worth a pile of money. 
 
 I think you ought to have more occupa- 
 tion, dear ; you seem to be so dependent 
 now on your affections and emotions, you 
 want something more to fill your life. I 
 wish you had a younger companion than 
 your mother you must try and get one 
 somehow. I am going on to Devonshire 
 on Thursday for two or three weeks, and 
 shall, perhaps, stay here again for a day or 
 two on my way back. Don't fidget, dear 
 child. No more time. JIM. 
 
 XIV 
 
 SHE 
 
 Thursday, gt/i. 
 
 JIM, darling, don't say I am sentimental 
 it sounds like a reproach ; but you know 
 we always write each other foolish, loving 
 letters. I am glad you are having a good 
 
246 ON THE WANE: 
 
 time. I suppose it was very foolish of me 
 to be unhappy, but it has been so odd to 
 find morning after morning going by and 
 no sign from you. You spoiled me at first 
 by writing every day. 
 
 You didn't say you loved me in your note 
 tell me that you do next time ; but don't 
 write till you want to do so. Be happy, 
 darling, and I will be happy, too, in thinking 
 of you. GWEN. 
 
 XV 
 
 HE 
 
 (A Telegram} 
 HORRABRIDGE, S. DEVON, 
 
 Friday i August nth. 
 
 HAD letter yesterday. Will write soon. 
 Here for some days. JIM. 
 
 XVI 
 
 SHE 
 
 Thursday, August 22d. 
 
 JIM, dear, do send me a line. It is nearly 
 a fortnight since I heard from you, and for 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 247 
 
 a long time your letters have been different ; 
 they have indeed, though I have tried to dis- 
 guise it from myself. I cannot bear it any 
 longer. Tell me what it all means, for it 
 must mean something. Speak out, I im- 
 plore you. You are not afraid of me, are 
 you, darling ? Your own loving 
 
 GWEN. 
 
 XVII 
 
 HE 
 
 HORRABRIDGE, Allgltst 2<\tk. 
 
 IT is strange how quickly a woman di- 
 vines ; and your heart has told you what I 
 have not had the courage to say. Gwen, 
 dear, I want to break it off, not because I 
 do not think you what I have always thought 
 you, or because I care for any one else, but 
 simply because I want to be free. Our en- 
 gagement no longer gives me the pleasure it 
 did ; I look forward to marriage as a sort of 
 bondage into which I do not want to enter. 
 I am perfectly frank with you, because I feel 
 that in an important matter like this it is 
 only right. Then, dear, you know my moth- 
 er never approved of it; parents are pru- 
 
248 ON THE WANE: 
 
 dent people, and she thought the whole 
 business unwise. I struggled against her 
 reasoning all I could, for I loved you, and 
 thought of your face, and of how you loved 
 me. But Gwen, dear, there is a good deal 
 in what she says. You see you couldn't 
 leave your mother ; and we should have to 
 be careful about money ; for I am not a fru- 
 gal beggar, and there are lots of difficulties. 
 I ought to have thought of them before, but 
 you were so sweet and good, a thousand 
 times too good for me, that I could think 
 of nothing but you. Say you forgive me, 
 and believe that I have loved you, for I 
 have ; and you won't hold me to it, will you, 
 Gwen ? I know this will cost you a great 
 deal, but you are a brave girl and will bear 
 it; and don't reproach me I could not bear 
 your reproaches. I am a scoundrel, and I 
 know it, a ruffian, or I should love you be- 
 yond all things, as I ought. J. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 SHE 
 
 August 2%th. 
 
 HOLD you to it when you want to be 
 free ? I would not be so much of a cob- 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 249 
 
 web. Thank God that in your letter you 
 were able at least to say that you had loved 
 me. Reproach you ? Why should I ? Men 
 are different from women it is not for wom- 
 en to judge them. Besides, I love you I 
 say it once more for this last time on earth 
 so much and so truly that I cannot be 
 angry, much less reproachful. Go, and be 
 happy, my darling. God bless you, and 
 good-bye. GWEN. 
 
 XIX 
 
 HE 
 
 (A MONTH LATER) 
 
 September 2$ffi. 
 
 I BELIEVE I ought to ask you for my let- 
 ters back. Will you send them, or write 
 and say that you have burned them ? which 
 you prefer. Forgive me for troubling you. 
 
 J. F. 
 
 P. S. I was so sorry to hear through the 
 Markhams that you had been ill. 
 
250 ON THE WANE: 
 
 XX 
 
 SHE 
 
 HAMPSTEAD, September z"]th. 
 I SEND back your letters, and your ring, 
 and other things. I ought to have sent 
 them before, but could not. I am glad you 
 asked for them. Thank you, I am better; 
 and to-morrow we start for Montreux, and 
 stay there through the winter; perhaps 
 much longer. Yours, G. W. 
 
 XXI 
 
 HE 
 
 (A YEAR LATER) 
 
 MY DEAR GWEN, (Forgive me, but I 
 cannot bring myself to address you more 
 formally) I saw your dear mother's death 
 in the paper yesterday. You have not been 
 out of my thoughts since. Perhaps I ought 
 not to write to you, but I can't help telling 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 251 
 
 you how grieved I am for all that you must 
 be suffering. It seems so rough that you 
 should be left alone in the world. I heard 
 that your Aunt Mary was with you, and I 
 hope that you may be going to live with 
 her; but probably you are not able yet to 
 think of your future. 
 
 Of course I do not know if you are coming 
 back to England soon ; but if not, and there 
 is anything I could get or do for you over 
 here, or anything I could do for you at any 
 time, I can't tell you what a privilege I 
 should think it. This is not the time to say 
 it, perhaps, but I respect no woman on earth 
 as I do you, and I should think it the great- 
 est honor to be of service to you. I dare 
 not hope that you will send me any reply to 
 this, still less that you ever think of me 
 kindly. But do believe how true is my 
 sympathy. Yours always, J. F. 
 
 XXII 
 
 SHE 
 
 GLION, August $th. 
 
 THANK you for your letter. Yes, my dear 
 mother is gone ; it seems so strange and 
 
252 ON THE WANE: 
 
 still without her. I sit and stare into an 
 empty world. Thank you ; but there is noth- 
 ing you can do for me. I always think of 
 you kindly. Why should I not do so ? 
 
 I am going to live with Aunt Mary. My 
 mother arranged it all. We are not coming 
 back to England yet; we stay here a little 
 time, then go down to Montreux again for 
 winter. Yours, G. W. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 HE 
 
 (six MONTHS LATER) 
 
 February isf. 
 
 I DON'T know how I am going to write 
 to you ; I have been longing to do it for 
 months past and not daring-. 
 
 It will be better to plunge at once. 
 Gwennie, could you forgive me and take 
 me back ? I should not be mad enough 
 to think it possible, but that I know you to 
 be the dearest girl on earth, and the most 
 constant. You did love me once, and though 
 perhaps you will only laugh at my audacity, 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 253 
 
 deep down in my heart something tells me 
 that you care for me a little bit still, or at 
 least that you could care for me again. I 
 remember your saying in one of your last 
 letters that the time had passed for make- 
 believes between us ; and if, in spite of all, 
 you have any feeling left for me, I know 
 that you will tell me frankly and truly just 
 as a less noble woman would hide it. 
 
 I have often wondered how I could throw 
 away a love like yours. I must have been 
 mad. I know now what it is, having once 
 had it, to be without it. You are far more to 
 me than you were in .the old days far more 
 than any words can tell. I am always think- 
 ing of you you are never out of my thoughts. 
 Oh, my darling, forgive me and take me 
 back ! Longing for a word from you, yet 
 hardly daring to hope I am yours, loving 
 you. J. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 SHE 
 
 February 3</. 
 
 YES, I am just the same. I never loved 
 any one but you, and I have not left off 
 
254 ON THE WANE: 
 
 loving you. I think I have known that you 
 would come back to me. It feels like find- 
 ing my way home, just when all the world 
 was at an end. You do not know what 
 anguish I have suffered and how I have 
 tried to be brave ; but without you, without 
 my mother O God ! But now some light 
 seems to be breaking through the darkness. 
 Yours once more, Jim, dear my Jim 
 again. GWEN. 
 
 XXV 
 
 HE 
 
 February ^th. 
 
 MY SWEET GWEN, MY OWN DEAR GIRL, 
 I kissed your little letter and longed to .kiss 
 you. You are a million times too good for 
 me, but you shall be happy this time if I can 
 make you so. I can't believe that we are all 
 right again. I should like to go down on my 
 knees and ask you to forgive me for all I 
 did, only I am such an impudent beggar 
 that kneeling isn't much in my line. 
 
 And when shall we be married, my sweet? 
 You had much better take possession of me 
 as soon as possible not that there is any 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 255 
 
 fear of my going astray any more, but there's 
 nothing to wait for, is there ? When are 
 you coming back from Montreux ? Shall I 
 come out and fetch you ? I should like to 
 in fact, I should rush off this very minute 
 just to look at your dear face again, but 
 that I am rather in awe of Aunt Mary 
 and I am rather in awe of you, too, my dar- 
 lingand half afraid of seeing you for the 
 first time. It is all too good to be true 
 at least it feels so just yet. I could get away 
 for a whole fortnight in March, and I don't 
 think I can go longer than that without see- 
 ing you. It is horrible to remember all the 
 months in which we have been apart. Let 
 us be together now, and forever, as soon as 
 it is possible. We will be so happy the fates 
 won't know us. 
 
 Your happy and devoted 
 
 JIM. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 SHE 
 
 February I2tk. 
 
 DEAR, Your letter almost made me 
 laugh it was just like you. 
 
256 ON THE WANE : 
 
 It is very strange to sit down and write 
 to you again and to know that all is right 
 between us. I don't realize it yet ; but I 
 shall soon, I suppose. Now I feel as if I 
 were inside a dream, groping about trying to 
 find my way into the waking world and half 
 fearing that there it would be different. But 
 life has become a restful thing again ; some 
 of the aching loneliness seems to have been 
 swept out of my heart not all, for I miss 
 my dear mother terribly, and keep longing 
 to tell her about this ; it chokes me to think 
 she cannot hear, that perhaps she does not 
 know. 
 
 My dear old Jim, how glad I am to come 
 back to you and to be loved again ! In my 
 thoughts I listen to the sound of your 
 laughter, and see your face, and hear your 
 quick footstep. I shall laugh too, presently, 
 but now I am still too much crushed by the 
 remembrance of the past months, as well as 
 overcome by this great happiness, to do 
 anything but be very grave and silent. Soon 
 I shall grow used to it, and shake my bells 
 again. For some strange reason I don't 
 want you to come just yet. I am afraid of 
 you, too, and yet I long to see and hear and 
 know, not merely dream, as I half do still, 
 that you love me again, and that all the old 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 257 
 
 life is going to begin once more. But come 
 in March ; Aunt Mary talks of going back 
 to England in April. 
 
 We must not be married just yet, not till 
 the summer is over, till the year is past till 
 I am your frivolous Gwennie again, instead 
 of a grave person in a sober black gown. 
 Dear Jim, I begin to think how wonderful it 
 will be to be with you all my life, to do 
 things for you, to fetch and carry and be 
 useful. A woman's hands always long to be 
 busy for those she loves ; since mother died 
 mine have been idle they are waiting for 
 you. If I could only get rid of the tiredness 
 that is still in my heart and soul but I shall 
 when I am with you. We will read and 
 talk and think, and take long walks together 
 all this will make me strong again. We 
 will begin when you come here to this 
 beautiful place. The snow is on the mount- 
 ains white and thick, and the lake is blue. 
 When the sun shines I wonder if heaven 
 itself can be much better. Good-night, 
 dear Jim. Your GWEN. 
 
 17 
 
258 ON THE WANE: 
 
 XXVII 
 
 HE 
 
 February i^th. 
 
 ALL right, my darling, I will come in 
 March ! I can hardly believe that I am 
 going to see you again so soon \ and oh, 
 Gwennie, it is good to feel that you are mine 
 again. You dear wifely thing, to plan how 
 you will take care of me with your two sweet 
 hands. I want you to have your ring back, 
 my precious one ; I shall bring it with me 
 and put it on your finger. 
 
 I have been considering ways and means. 
 Do you know that I am growing rich, and 
 can give you many more luxuries and pretty 
 frocks and things than I could have man- 
 aged before ? What do you say to a flat to 
 begin with, somewhere on the right side of 
 the park, not too far from the Club ? My 
 mother had one last year for a few months, 
 and said it was much better and less trouble 
 than a house. 
 
 Have you had a new photograph taken 
 lately? I want to see if your face looks 
 just the same, and what you have done with 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 259 
 
 your dimple. I don't like to think of you 
 in a black gown, my poor darling ; you must 
 try and put it off as soon as you can. I 
 want to see you in the old blue one, and I 
 would give anything to walk about with you 
 once again in the garden at Hampstead. I 
 often think of your face as it used to look 
 under the trees, and of how we used to steal 
 out in the dusk by the garden door, and 
 over the heath and round by the pond. It 
 is a thousand times better to think of than 
 your Swiss mountains and blue lake out 
 there. But I shall come and see those too, 
 soon, and then I sha'n't be jealous of them 
 any more. Tell me in your next letter that 
 you love me, my darling (you didn't in your 
 last), and that I am just the same to you as 
 you are to me, only you are a hundred times 
 more more and more every day. 
 
 Your adoring old JIM. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 SHE 
 
 February zoth. 
 
 MY DEAREST JIM, I am just the same, 
 darling, and I love you ; but I have not your 
 
260 ON THE WANE: 
 
 wild spirits ; that is all. The past year has 
 sobered me down only one year, as time is 
 measured, but it has made me many long 
 ones older. 
 
 I am glad you are growing rich ; it shows 
 that the world likes you. Yes, dear, we will 
 have a flat if you like and where you like. 
 It would be nice if we could get one some- 
 where away from noise and hurry. I long 
 for a cosey room with book-shelves round it, 
 and a library that will grow and grow, and 
 prove that we have new books very often. 
 I hope we shall do heaps of reading, for I 
 have become quite studious ; you will hard- 
 ly know your frivolous sweetheart. But the 
 walks by the lake or along the upper roads 
 day after day, always alone amid the silences, 
 have set me thinking. The world seems to 
 have stretched out so far and to be so full 
 of things it wants to tell us if we will but 
 listen. I long to talk about them with you. 
 We were young, and so much taken up with 
 ourselves in the old days that we had little 
 time to think of all that is most to us after 
 love. 
 
 You shall not scoff at this lovely place, 
 you dear, bad person. I long to take you 
 up to Les Avants, and over the way to Savoy, 
 and to make you look towards the Rhone 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 261 
 
 Valley there at the head of the lake with 
 the mountains on either side forming a gate- 
 way. I made a dozen romances about the 
 far, far off in which the valley ends almost 
 at the feet of Italy, till the other day when 
 I was sadly taken down by Uncle Alfred 
 who was here. I told him of all the mys- 
 teries and fairy stories that seemed to be 
 lurking in the valley, and he laughed and 
 said there was none there ; it was only very 
 long and very uninteresting, and might be 
 described as Switzerland run to seed. I see 
 it with such different eyes ; but then they 
 are not the eyes that are in my head. Peo- 
 ple say that Death is a scene-shifter; and 
 so is every new experience. Experience 
 has made all things look different to me ; 
 only those that are in my memory remain 
 the same, all that I actually see and hear 
 have changed. 
 
 Are you fond of the world, Jim, and do 
 you think much about it ? It seems such 
 an absurd question, and yet it is not. I 
 mean the world in itself. I have learned to 
 see that it is very beautiful, and to feel so 
 reverential when I think of all the human 
 feet that have walked through it, and all the 
 hands that have worked for it. I want to 
 do my share of work in it too, if it be pos- 
 
262 ON THE WANE: 
 
 sible : I should like to make it something 
 beautiful. A little while ago I read Maz- 
 zini ; do you remember that he says we 
 ought to regard the world as a workshop in 
 which we have each to make something 
 good or beautiful with the help of the oth- 
 ers? I am not strong enough to do any- 
 thing by myself, but if you and I together 
 could ever do it, even the least little good, 
 darling, it would be something to remember 
 thankfully. We would count it as our trib- 
 ute in return for each other's love, which it 
 had given us. Sometimes I have thought 
 that the world is like a great bank into 
 which we put good and evil, joy and sorrow, 
 for all the coming generations to draw upon. 
 We won't leave them any evil or sorrow if 
 we can help it, will we ? I should never have 
 done anything by myself save brood and 
 dream ; but now it seems as if a door is 
 opening and we shall go through together 
 to find a hundred things that we must do. 
 I am so ambitious for you, Jim. I want you 
 to do and be so much ; and nothing achieved 
 will ever seem enough or wholly satisfy me. 
 I want you to climb the heavenly heights, 
 my darling, not in the ordinary sense, but 
 in work and deeds. Do you understand? 
 Oh, how I pray that you do ! 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 263 
 
 I am half ashamed to write all this to 
 you. But so many things have crept into 
 my heart and soul in these long months, 
 and between the hours of sorrow and pain, 
 and I do not want you to be a stranger 
 among thoughts and longings I never ex- 
 pected to put into words. I wish I knew of 
 the things that you think about, in the inner 
 life that most of us live silently, and seldom 
 speak of at all. We only can speak of them 
 to the one person we love best, or to some 
 strange being we may not even love, but 
 that our soul seems to recognize as if it had 
 found one it had known centuries before, or 
 in some shadowy dream-land of which it 
 could not give account. There are many 
 walls of silences to break down between us, 
 and many things on which we must build 
 together before we know each other abso- 
 lutely. Let us try to begin at once. Oh, 
 Jim, don't laugh at me for writing all this ! 
 Remember I have only you in the wide 
 world now. I love my mother still ; I ache 
 and long for her, but it is a different love 
 from that which is given to the living it is 
 more like religion. I cannot hear her voice, 
 or see her face ; my hands cannot touch 
 her ; I have only you now in my human life. 
 And it is a blessed rest, darling, to have 
 
264 ON THE WANE I 
 
 your love again. I think I was dying of 
 tiredness ; but now I shall grow very strong 
 strong to love you, dear. 
 
 Always your GWEN. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 HE 
 
 February 
 
 You are a dear, sweet, beloved child ; but 
 don't let us discuss heaven and earth and 
 the musical glasses in our love-letters just 
 yet at any rate. No doubt we shall come to 
 it in time and double dummy too ; but let 
 us wait our turn. Tell me you love me 
 again. I shall never get tired of hearing 
 that ; and in your next letter could you not 
 say, " I send you a kiss, Jim," then I shall 
 know it really is all right. I send you a 
 thousand, just like a Mary Jane the cook's 
 young man. 
 
 I want to see you so much, you precious 
 thing, that I am going to rush to you next 
 week. Then we can go to Savoy and Les 
 Avants and anywhere else you please. I 
 sha'n't mind how long the walks are, or how 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 265 
 
 lonely. You can bet we won't talk very 
 big talk, but we'll be happier than any two 
 people have been since Adam and Eve be- 
 fore they let the serpent in. I can't live 
 any longer without seeing your dear face, 
 and I think of starting on Tuesday. Shall 
 I be welcome ? say, you gypsy. You will 
 only just have time to send one more letter 
 before I start ; make it a nice one, my sweet. 
 Your devoted JIM. 
 
 XXX 
 
 SHE 
 
 February 2"jth. 
 
 DEAREST, You would have been wel- 
 come, but all our arrangements are sud- 
 denly altered. Aunt Mary has some im- 
 portant business,. and we start for England 
 to-morrow. We arrive on Wednesday morn- 
 ing. Isn't this good news, old dear ? I am 
 so glad that I don't want to talk about any- 
 thing but happiness now not even of 
 heaven and earth and the musical glasses. 
 I am afraid of myself of my two feet that 
 will walk towards you, and my two eyes that 
 
266 ON THE WANE: 
 
 will see you, and my ears that will hear you. 
 I love you, and you know it. Good-bye till 
 we meet. I will telegraph from Dover. 
 
 Your own GWEN. 
 
 P. S Oh, but I can't, I am shy ; and it's 
 so long since 
 
 XXX t 
 
 SHE 
 (THREE WEEKS LATER) 
 
 BRYANSTON ST. , March 26t/i. 
 
 DEAREST JIM, Don't come this evening ; 
 there are so many things to look through ; 
 I must begin them indeed. 
 
 Thank you for your letter ; you are very 
 good to me, dear. GWEN. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 HE 
 
 March 2Jt/i. 
 
 VERY well, my darling, I'll wait till to- 
 morrow. Is anything the matter with you, 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 267 
 
 sweet ? It is odd, but since the first rush 
 of meeting you have seemed so grave, and 
 there is a little stately reserve that clings 
 to you and makes me feel out in the cold- 
 I cannot even guess of what you are think- 
 ing : before I always knew without your tell- 
 ing me. Don't be like that with me, dear 
 one. Let us be just as we were in the old 
 days. I love you ten times more than I 
 used, and there is something sad in your 
 face that makes me loathe myself for all 
 the pain I once caused you. You have for- 
 given me, haven't you, my darling? I was a 
 brute, but I know it ; and I love you with all 
 my heart. 
 
 Your devoted JIM. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 SHE 
 
 April 2d. 
 
 DEAREST JIM, I am sorry, but I can't go 
 to the National Gallery to-morrow. Aunt 
 Mary wants me to help her a good deal just 
 now. We think of going to Torquay for a 
 little bit. This English wind is very cutting. 
 
268 ON THE WANE: 
 
 Thank you, dearie, for the magazines and 
 the flowers. You are much too good to me ; 
 I often think that. GWEN. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 HE 
 
 April 4tA. 
 
 MY DARLING, What is the matter ? You 
 are always making excuses now ; don't you 
 care about seeing me? Have I offended 
 you ? Send me one line. My love for you 
 has grown through all the months you were 
 away, but I can't help fearing that yours for 
 me has waned. 
 
 JIM. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 SHE 
 
 April bth. 
 
 YES, Jim dear, I care about seeing you, of 
 course ; but I have so many things to think 
 about. Aunt Mary's cough is much worse, 
 and we have decided to go off to Torquay 
 at once. We shall be gone by the time you 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 269 
 
 get this. I am so sorry not to have seen 
 you again, but we shall be back in a fortnight 
 if it is warmer. Oh, Jim dear, once more 
 you are too good to me ! Why have you 
 sent me that packet ? 
 
 Your grateful GWEN. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 SHE 
 
 (A Telegram) 
 
 April %th. 
 
 THE address is Belle Vue, Torquay. Aunt 
 Mary better ; will write to-morrow. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 HE 
 
 LONDON, April %th. 
 
 GWEN, DEAR, This can't go on. Things 
 are all wrong between us. I felt it even the 
 first evening -you came back. What is the 
 matter ? Do tell me, my darling. Is it any- 
 
2;o ON THE WANE: 
 
 thing that I have said or done ? With greater 
 love than words can tell, 
 
 Your miserable old JIM. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 SHE 
 
 (A Telegram) 
 
 April loth. 
 
 WILL write to-morrow. It is very difficult. 
 Have been thinking day and night what to 
 say, but you shall hear without fail to-mor- 
 row. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 SHE 
 
 TORQUAY, April nth. 
 
 JIM, I am miserable too, more miserable 
 than words can say. I want you to do for 
 me what I did for you before to set me free 
 and let me go. I -have struggled against it, 
 tried, reasoned with myself, but all to no 
 purpose. It is no use disguising the truth, 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 2/1 
 
 cost you or me what it may. I am changed, 
 but I cannot tell why nor how, only that it 
 is so. Dear Jim, forgive me, I entreat you, 
 and let me go. GWEN. 
 
 XL 
 
 HE 
 
 LONDON, April \2.th. 
 
 DEAREST, But there must be some mean- 
 ing to this. Write and tell me what it is. 
 You must care for me still, darling; you 
 could not have been true to me all this time 
 if you could change so easily. Write and 
 tell me what has come over you. Perhaps 
 it is something that I can explain away; I 
 cannot bear to let you go. Speak out, I 
 implore you, darling. JIM. 
 
 XLI 
 
 SHE 
 
 TORQUAY, April i^th. 
 
 I DO not know what has come over me. 
 I do care for you, but I think it is simple 
 
272 ON THE WANE : 
 
 affection or friendship that I feel I am not 
 in love any more. I did not know it at 
 Montreux. Every day since we parted I 
 had lived in the memory of your love. I 
 thought I was just the same, and never 
 dreamed of change till after we came back 
 then I found it out. All the life, all the 
 reality, all the sunshine, seem to have gone 
 out of my love for you. I used to feel my 
 heart beat quick when you came ; now it 
 does not. I used to hear your footstep with 
 a start of joy ; it is nothing to me now ; I 
 listen to it curiously, or with a little dismay. 
 I am not eager when you come, and cannot 
 make myself so. I never go forward to 
 meet you. Have you not noticed how I 
 stand still* on the hearth-rug as you enter ? 
 Something holds me there with a sense of 
 guilty coldness in my heart. Have you not 
 felt the silence fall between us when we try 
 to talk ? We have nothing to say ; and 
 while we sit and stare at each other my soul 
 seems to be far off, living another life. It is 
 almost a relief when you go ; yet I dread 
 the tenderness of your good-bye. I used to 
 think of home together as dearest life ; now 
 I wonder how we should drag through the 
 days. There are places I want to see, things 
 I want to do, plans to think over, books to 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 273 
 
 read : and between all these you seem to 
 stand like a fate. It is my fault all, all. 
 You are just the same, but I am different ; 
 and I can't marry you, Jim ; I can't, indeed. 
 I know the pain I am costing you ; did I 
 not suffer it through long, long months ? 
 But believe that I have tried to be true 
 tried and tried, dear. I did not dream till 
 we met that only the ghost of the old love 
 remained the memory of it, the shadow ; 
 that the reality had slipped away ; that pain 
 had quenched it. I would give the wide 
 world to be once again the girl who loved 
 you, who was so merry and so happy, who 
 used to walk about the Hampstead garden 
 counting the minutes till you came. But it 
 is no good. I am a woman, with only a re- 
 membrance of the girl, and I am altogether 
 different. Forgive me, dear Jim ; forgive 
 me and let me go. GWEN. 
 
 XLII 
 
 HE 
 
 April 14/7*. 
 
 MY DARLING, I can't do it; for God's 
 sake don't throw me over, for I can't face 
 
 18 
 
274 ON THE WANE: 
 
 it. It is all fancy, dear. You have been ill 
 and strained and worried ; you have been 
 left too much alone ; you have grown too 
 introspective ; wait, and it will all come right 
 again. I love you more and more every 
 day ; and after all the months in which I 
 loved you, and never dared to make a sign, 
 you won't treat me like this ? Think of the 
 days we spent together long ago, and the 
 plans we made. You are not going to chuck 
 them all away ? I would do anything on 
 earth for you, and you shall have my whole 
 life's devotion. Write and tell me that you 
 will take it, my darling, and bear with me, 
 and try to love me again. I can't let you 
 go, Gwen. It's no good, I can't face it. 
 
 Your adoring and devoted and miserable 
 old JIM. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 SHE 
 
 April 
 
 BUT, Jim dear, you must you must set 
 me free. I can't go on ; it is not that I am 
 strained or morbid or too introspective, or 
 anything of the sort, only this I can't marry 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 275 
 
 you, and I can't. Sorrow and loneliness 
 have made me think, have opened my eyes 
 wide, and I see that we are strangers inward- 
 ly, even while outwardly we are lovers. You 
 loved me at Hampstead for my laughter, my 
 love of you, my big hat, the shady garden, 
 my gladness to be loved for a hundred 
 things that do not belong to the life that is 
 mine now. So, too, I loved you back, because 
 of your merry voice, your handsomeness, 
 your love of me because of the holiday- 
 time we made of life when we were together. 
 But that time is over for ever and ever. You 
 cannot give me back my laughter, my girl- 
 hood, the happiness that almost frightened 
 me ; they are gone, they will never find their 
 way to me again ; and my love for you was 
 bound up with them it has gone, too. Some- 
 times my heart cries out, longing for its old 
 feelings again, till I feel like Faust before &>+ 
 he conjured Mephistopheles to him, save for 
 his years the actual years that time 
 out ; or like a Hindoo for whom the time has ' 
 come to vanjsh into f he forest and dream. VJ. tJi 
 Only twenty-three, Jim, but youth has gone ,&> ^ 
 you cannot have back the girl who laughed 
 and loved you so she does not exist ; part- 
 ing and silence killed her. It sounds like a 
 reproach, but God knows it is not one. And 
 
2/6 -ON THE WANE : 
 
 no new feelings have grown up to take the 
 place of the old ones that are dead. We 
 are almost strangers, and I cannot reconcile 
 myself to the thought of our being more 
 than friends. I even shrink from you and 
 shudder. Your laughter does not gladden 
 me ; your talk does not hold my senses any 
 longer ; and concerning the things of which 
 I think most my lips of themselves refuse to 
 speak. 
 
 The very ring on my finger frets and wor- 
 ries me. In the old days I used to kiss it, 
 and wish it hurt me, that it burned or bit, so 
 that I might feel through pain, as through 
 all things, the joy of loving you. But now I 
 turn and twist it round as a prisoner does 
 his fetter, longing, yet afraid, as he is unable 
 to shake it off, till you shall give me leave 
 and set me free. 
 
 You can't marry me, Jim dear, feeling as 
 I do now. It would be madness. It is of 
 no use making our whole lives a failure, or 
 a tragedy, because we have not the courage 
 to face the pain of parting now. If I thought 
 you would be happy with me I would hesi- 
 tate, but we should neither of us be happy. 
 And it is not as if this were a passing phase ; 
 I know that it is not. I live in another 
 world from you now. I do not know if it is 
 
A SENTIMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE 277 
 
 better or worse, only that it is different ; it 
 seems as if in the past months a hand was 
 stretched out ; I took it and went on, almost 
 dazed on and on while you stood still. I 
 am going farther, and shall never return, but 
 you will be in the world behind me. There 
 may be happiness for me, and life and love 
 once more ; I do not know ; but it will be 
 far, far off, away from you. Between us all 
 things have finished. I cannot turn and go 
 back into the old year, the old love, the old 
 life ; I have passed them all by for good or 
 ill. Oh, Jim, understand and let me go ! for- 
 give me all the pain I have cost you, and 
 let me go. GWEN. 
 
 XLIV 
 HE 
 
 April is///. 
 
 ALL right go. I thought you the most 
 constant girl on earth : that you loved me as 
 I do you. Since it pleases you to play fast 
 and loose with me, let it be so. My feelings, 
 of course, are of no account weighed against 
 your fancies. You have shaken all my faith 
 in women ; for I did believe in you, Gwen. 
 Good-bye. JIM. 
 
278 ON THE WANE: 
 
 XLV 
 
 SHE 
 
 (A WEEK LATER) 
 
 April id. 
 
 I SEND back your letters and things once 
 more it is better to get it over. Return 
 mine or burn them as you please. Aunt 
 Mary cannot stand this English climate, and 
 we start almost immediately for Italy; prob- 
 ably to live there altogether. I think it will 
 be a relief to you to know this. I hope with 
 all my heart that you will soon forget the 
 pain I have given you, that all good things 
 may come to you ; and one day I hope that 
 you will marry some one who will make you 
 happy, and love you as I did long ago in the 
 dear days at Hampstead. Good-bye, 
 
 GWEN. 
 
 THE END. 
 
UNHAPPY LOVES 
 
 OF 
 
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 By THOMAS HITCHCOCK. With Twelve Por- 
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