Dear Peter:
I had decided not to write you anymore concerning myself or of what has happened to me in these intervening years. But woman-like I felt that there was more you should know, and I did not precisely feel as if I had had the last word. You must forbear with me and be patient.
As I told you in my last letter, Bill went to the penitentiary. I went with him on the train. The sheriff thought I was his wife. He commiserated with me and allowed me to sit next to Bill all the way. Bill was pitiful. I felt for him, for it was so unnecessary for him to be in the position he was in. I would have given Bill a living but I was afraid. He would not have believed me. He would have thought that I had some other man. Bill would have killed me and then you would have been free. I never intended that. I would not have had that happen.
You should have sat back of us and heard Bill swear what he would do after he got out. Twenty years! Can you imagine anybody laying plans for something to happen in twenty years? Bill did not get out. Poor animal, he died in the place. I buried him. And curiously enough I wept for him when he was placed in the ground. I buried with him my one great love. But I had learned what love meant. I don’t mean love surrounded with riches, but love that animates the breast of just a man. It is different.
When he was buried and a small stone placed at his head, I left the country. I came to Paris and I have lived here ever since. I should like to have you see the place. It is beautiful. I have a great house. And in it I have one room with a divan and a light back of it. I have in front of the divan a fireplace. It is kept lit all the time, even in the warmest weather. I look into it a great deal. I build even now hopes and castles that will never be realities.
I see in its blue flame, when the light is out and a quiet has settled upon the streets and only an occasional wayfarer goes by, a castle, and in its walls I place you, Peter—and the boy. I see my life as it might have been. I should not have known Bill. I should have had a different kind of love, not of the same value, but still I imagine it might have sufficed; it might have held me to my own. It would have done for I would not have known Bill—Bill the cave man.
Have you, I wonder, ever thought of this? Have you ever considered how dreadfully wasted your life has been and how lonely?
I have a garden back of this house. French windows open out upon it. Down in its depths, where I love to go, I have had placed trees like those I loved at home, greenswards of grass lead to paths and their borders are lined with flowers, almost the same kinds of flowers I had at home. A fountain plays and casts its waters into the air. I have a lodge keeper who bows when I enter the gates. He has a sinister smile. He, too, seems unhappy, but wise beyond comprehension, Peter.
Underneath, Peter, I want something I haven’t got. I don’t know what that is. I try to argue the thing out. I go carefully over every incident that has comprised my life. I try to blame myself. Sometimes I can and then at other times I cannot. It is curious the condition I am in.