She had tried to write to Deane. She felt that she should write to him, but she had a feeling of powerlessness. Finally, only a little while before, she had brought herself to do it. She knew it was a poor letter, a halting, constrained thing, but it seemed the best she could do, and so finally, after a great deal of uncertainty, she sent it.
His reply made her feel that he realized how it had been, why she had been so long in writing, why the letter had been the stilted thing it was. It gave her a feeling that her friend had not withdrawn from her because of what she had brought down upon him, that that open channel between him and her was there as it had ever been. And though his letter did not make her happy, it loosened something in her to be able to feel that the way between her and Deane was not closed.
"Don't distress yourself, Ruth," she now reread, "or have it upon your spirit, where too much has lain heavy all these years. You want to know the truth, and the truth is that Amy did resent my feeling about you—about you and your situation—and that put us apart. But you see it was not in us to stay together, or we could not have been thus put apart. Love can't do it all, Ruth—not for long; I mean love that hasn't roots down in the spirit can't. And where there isn't that spiritual underneath, without a hinterland, love is pretty insecure.
"I could have held on to it a while longer, I suppose, by cutting clear loose from the thing really me. And I suppose I would have done it if I could—I did in fact make attempts at it—but that me-ness, I'm afraid, is most infernal strong in my miserable make-up. And somehow the withdrawal of one's self seems a lot to pay for even the happiness of love. There are some of us can't seem able to do it.
"So it's not you, Ruth; it's that it was like that, and that it came out through the controversy about you. Cast from your mind any feeling adding the wrecking of my happiness to your list of crimes.
"But, Ruth, I'm not happy. I couldn't get along in happiness, and I don't get along without it. It's a paralyzing thing not to have happiness—or to lose it, rather. Does it ever seem to you that life is a pretty paralyzing thing? That little by little—a little here and a little there—it gets us? We get harness-broke, you see. Seems to have gone that way with most of the people I know. Seems to be that way with me. Don't let it do it to you!
"Somehow I don't believe it will. I think that you, Ruth, would be a fine little prison-breaker. Might stand some show of being one myself if I were anywhere but in this town. There's something about it that has got me, Ruth. If it hadn't—I'd be getting out of it now.
"But of course I'm a pretty poor sort, not worth making a fight for, or it wouldn't be like this. And—for that matter—what's the difference? Lives aren't counting for much these days—men who are the right sort going down by the thousands, by the hundred of thousands, so what—for heaven's sake—does it matter about me?
"I wish I could see you!
"I'm glad for you about the divorce. I believe the case comes up this April term, so it may be all over by the time you get this letter. Pretty late in coming, and I suppose it must seem a good deal of a mockery—getting it now—but maybe it will help some for the future, make you feel more comfortable, and I'm awfully glad.