"Is that your only thought?" he demanded indignantly. "Can't you think of what's brave and worth while—of what's decent for a big thing like a soul? A soul that's going on living to eternity—do you want to blacken that at the start? Can't you forget your little moods and your despair of the moment?"
"No, I can't." The roses bobbed as she shook her head. The man, in his heart, knew how it was, and did not wonder. But he must somehow stop this determination which he had—she said—helped to form. A thought came to him; he hesitated a moment, and then broke out impetuously: "Let me do this—let me write to you; I'm not saying things straight. It's hard. I think I could write more clearly. And it's unfair not to give me a hearing. Will you promise only this, not to do it till you've read my letter?"
Slowly the youth, the indomitable brightness in the girl forged to the front. She looked at him with the dawn of a smile in her eyes, and he saw all at once, with a passing vision, that her eyes were very blue and that her hair was bright and light—a face vivid and responsive.
"Why, yes. There's no particular reason for to-night. I can wait. But I'm going home to-morrow, to my uncle's place at Forest Gate. I'll never be here again. The people I'm with are going away to live next month. I'll never see you again. You don't know my name." She considered a moment. "I'd rather not have you know it. You may write to—" She laughed. "I said I was just a date—you may write to August First, Forest Gate, Illinois. Say care of, care of—" Again she laughed. "Oh, well, care of Robert Halarkenden. That will reach me."
Quite gravely the man wrote down the fantastic address. "Thank you. I will write at once. You promised?"
"Yes." She put out her hand. "You've been very good to me. I shall never see you again. Good-by."
"Good-by," he said, and the room was suddenly so still, so empty, so dark that it oppressed him.
WARCHESTER,
St. Andrew's Parish House,
August 5th.
This is to redeem my promise. When we talked that afternoon, it seemed to me that I should be able to write the words I could not say. Every day since then I have said "Tomorrow I shall be able to tell her clearly." The clearness has not come—that's why I have put it off. It hasn't yet come. Sometimes—twice, I think—I have seen it all plainly. Just for a second—in a sort of flash. And then it dropped back into this confusion.
I won't insult you by attempting to discount your difficulties. You have worked out for yourself a calculation made, at one time or another, by many more people than you would imagine. And your answer is wrong. I know that. You know it too. When you say that you are afraid of what may come after, you admit that what you intend to do is impossible. If you were not convinced of something after, you would go on and do what you propose. Which shows that there is an error in your mathematics. Do you at all know what I mean?