Daunt to Margaret.
“New York, Sunday Morning.
“My Very Own!—Is that the way to begin a love letter? Anyhow, it is what I want to say. It is what I have called you a thousand times, to myself, since a one day far back—which I shall tell you about some time—when I made up my mind that you should love me. Does that sound conceited? Did you ever guess it? Over a year I have carried the thought with me; you have loved me only half that time.
“How I have watched your love unfolding! How I have hugged and treasured every new little leaf! I have been afraid so long to touch it; I wanted every petal full-blown, before I picked it, to be mine—mine, only mine, all mine, as long as I lived.
“Since I left you yesterday, to come up to this dismal city, I have been so happy that I have almost pinched myself to see if I were not asleep. To think that all my richest dreams have come true all at once!
“When I think of it, it makes me feel very humble. I shall be more ambitious. I am going to write better and truer. I must make you proud of me! I am going to work hard. No other man ever had such an incentive to grow—to catch up with ideals—as I have, because no other man ever had you to love.
“Yesterday I went directly from the train to the club. I pulled one of the big chairs into a shaded corner and closed my eyes to feel over and over again the deliciousness of the afternoon. I could feel your body in my arms and your head hard against my shoulder and—that first kiss. It has been on my lips ever since! I haven’t dared even to smoke for fear it might vanish!
“All the while I had a curious, vivid, tumultuous sense as though I were in especially close touch with you. It seemed almost as if you wanted to tell me something, and that I couldn’t quite hear.
“After I went to bed I could not sleep for happiness; I wondered what you had been doing, saying, thinking, dreaming—whether you thought of me much, and, most of all, when you knelt down that night! Shall I always be in the ‘Inner Room,’ and shall you look in often?
“A letter is such a pitiful makeshift! I could go on writing pages! I want to put my arms around you and whisper it in your ear!
“The church-bells are ringing now. I can picture you sitting in the chapel, just as you do every Sunday, and, maybe sometimes, just a minute of course, stealing a little backward thought of me!
“Always in my mind, you will be linked with red roses, such as you wore then. To-day I am sending you down a hamper of them. I should like to think of you to-night as sleeping nestled up in them, and dreaming their perfume. I am longing to see you. I feel as though I wanted to roll the day up and push it away to get into to-morrow quicker.
“You will hardly be able to read this—my pen runs away with me; but I know you can read what is written over it all and between every two lines—that I love you, I love you wholly, unalterably.
“God keep you, safe and sound, dearest, always, always—for me!
“Richard.”