“Dearest, do not be angry with me. I cannot accept your love, I have no right to accept it. Our friendship, our companionship, has been infinitely precious to me; it has given me a belief in human nature which I never had before. But you are young, you are still growing—in mind, in spirit. You must be free. I cannot cramp your youth, your growth, by accepting your love. Look, my dear, it would be an impasse. We could not marry. It would be monstrous if I should let you marry me—at the end of a year, at the end of six months, you would hate me, you would feel that I had spoiled your life. Yes, it is true. You must be free—you must grow. You must not handicap yourself at twenty-two by marrying a woman seven years your senior.
“Well, what then? Nothing but this—I must not accept your love, dear, I must give you up. You will go on, on; you will grow, you will outgrow the love you bear me now. You will live your life. And some day you will meet a woman of your own age.
“I know the pain this letter will give you; I know, I know. You will be unhappy, you will be angry with me. Dearest, try to forgive me. I am doing the only thing there is for me to do. You will be glad of it in the future. You will shudder to think, ’What if that woman had taken me at my word!’—Oh, why weren’t you born ten years earlier, or I ten years later?
“I am going to the Convent of Saint Veronica, to pass Lent. Perhaps I shall stay longer. Perhaps—do not cry out, it is not a sudden resolution—perhaps I shall remain there, as an oblate. I could teach music, French. I must do something. I must not lead this idle futile life. Do not think of me as undergoing hardships. The rule for an oblate is not severe.
“Good-bye, dear. I pray God to bless you in every way.
“Good-bye, good-bye.
“Gabrielle.”
Don’t ask me what I felt, what I did....
Lent dragged itself away, but she did not return to Rome.