Chapter LXXIII: Letter LXXIII

Dearest: I could never have made any appeal _from_ you to anybody: all my appeal has been _to_ you alone. I have wished to hear reason from no other lips but yours; and had you but really and deeply confided in me, I believe I could have submitted almost with a light heart to what you thought best:--though in no way and by no stretch of the imagination can I see you coming to me for the last time and _saying_, as you only wrote, that it was best we should never see each other again.

You could not have said that with any sound of truth; and how can it look truer frozen into writing? I have kissed the words, because you wrote them; not believing them. It is a suspense of unbelief that you have left me in, oh, still dearest! Yet never was sad heart truer to the fountain of all its joy than mine to yours. You had only to see me to know that.

Some day, I dream, we shall come suddenly together, and you will see, before a word, before I have time to gather my mind back to the bodily comfort of your presence, a face filled with thoughts of you that have never left it, and never been bitter:--I believe never once bitter. For even when I think, and convince myself that you have wronged yourself--and so, me also,--even then: oh, then most of all, my heart seems to break with tenderness, and my spirit grow more famished than ever for the want of you! For if you have done right, wisely, then you have no longer any need of me: but if you have done wrong, then you must need me. Oh, dear heart, let that need overwhelm you like a sea, and bring you toward me on its strong tide! And come when you will I shall be waiting.