sisters. In the young men that went lightly in
and out, finding life so full of zest, thinking each other so
interesting and wonderful; in the tired face of the old Professor,
limping along the street; in the prosperous, comfortable contentment of
robust men, full of little affairs and schemes--I saw in all of them
the same hope, the same unity of purpose, the same significance; and we
three in the midst, united by love and loss alike, we were at the
centre, as it were, of a great drama of life and love, in which even
death could only shift the scene and enrich the intensity of the secret
hope.

September 5, 1889.

The rapt and exalted mood that I carried away from Cambridge could not
last; I did not hope that it could. We have had a dark and sad time,
yet with gleams of sweetness in it, because we have realised how
closely we are drawn together, how much we depend on each other. Maud's
brave spirit has seemed for a time broken utterly; and this has done
more than anything to bring us nearer, because I have felt the
stronger, realising how much she leant upon me. She has been filled
with self-reproach, I know not for what shadowy causes. She blames
herself for a thousand things, for not having been more to Alec, for
having followed her own interests and activities, for not having
understood him better. It is all unreal, morbid, overstrained, of
course, but none the less terribly there. I have tried to persuade her
that it is but weariness and grief trying to attach itself to definite
causes, but she cannot be comforted. Meanwhile we walk, stroll, drive,
read, and talk together--mostly of him, for I can do that now; we can
even smile together over little memories, though it is perilous
walking, and a step brings us to the verge of tears. But, thank God,
there is not a single painful memory, not a thing we would have had
otherwise in the whole of that little beautiful life; and I wonder now
wretchedly, whether its very beauty and brightness ought not to have
prepared me more to lose him; it was too good to be true, too perfectly
pure and brave. Yet I never even dreamed that he would leave us; I
should have treasured the bright days better if I had. There are times
of sharpest sorrow, days when I wake and have forgotten; when I think
of him as with us, and then the horror of my loss comes curdling and
weltering back upon me; when I thrill from head to foot with hopeless
agony, rebelling, desiring, hating the death t