Daunt to Margaret.
“Dearest:—Please, please let me reason with you. Don’t think me ungenerous; bear with me a little. I must make you see it my way! I cheat myself with such endless guessing. Can I have grieved you or disappointed you? Have I shocked those beautiful white ideals of yours in any way? If that walk on the shore had been a month ago, if we had been together since, I might believe this; but we have not. That was the last, and you loved me then! I brought my naked heart to you that afternoon—it had been yours for long!—and laid it in your hand. You took it and kissed me, and I went away without it. Have you weighed it in the balance and found it wanting? Do you doubt what it could give you? Dear, let it try!
“To-day I walked up the old glen where the deserted cabin is. The very breeze went whispering of you and the rustling of every bush sounded like your name. The sky was duller and the grass less green. Even the squirrels sat up to ask where you were with the chestnuts you always brought them. Nothing is the same; I am infinitely lonely here, and yet I stay on where everything means you! When I walk it seems as if you must be waiting, smiling, just around every bend of the rock—just behind every clump of ferns—to tell me it was all a foolish fancy, that you love me and have not gone away! You are all things to me, dear. I cannot live without you. I want you—I need you so! I never knew how much before.
“Only tell me what your letters have not, that you do not love me—that you were mistaken—that it was all a folly, a madness—and I will never ask again! Ah, but I know you will not; you cannot. You do! You do! I have that one moment to remember when I held you in my arms, when your throat throbbed against my cheek, when your lips were on mine, when your arms went up around my head, and when I could feel your heart beating quick against me. Your breath was trembling and your eyes were like stars! Can you ask me to forget that, the moment that I seemed to have always lived and kept myself for?
“It’s impossible! This must be a passing mood of yours which will vanish. Love is a stronger thing than that! I don’t know the thing that is troubling you—I can’t guess it—but I am sure of you. I know you in a larger, deeper way, and in the end you will never disappoint me in that!
“I am hoping, longing, waiting. Let me come to you! Let me see you face to face, and read there what the matter is!
“Remember that I am still
“Your own,
“R.”