where. The one you have loved
understands all, and so there could never be even a question of
forgiveness."

Denin longed to add to his letter the request that she would write
often; but he would not ask that of Barbara. He must be ready to give
all that she wanted, and beg for nothing in return. Perhaps if she
found any small comfort in what he had written this time, she would be
satisfied, and feel that nothing more was left to be said on either
side. This possibility he tried to keep before his mind, and to think
of even as a probability, in order to soften the blow of disappointment
if he never heard again. But in his heart he knew that she would write.
It seemed to him when he walked in the little garden of the Mirador, or
stretched his long body on the warm grass under a big olive tree he
loved, that he could hear her thoughts in the garden of Gorston Old
Hall. With his ear close to the earth the message Barbara would send by
and by seemed to come to him before it had left her mind and taken form
on paper.

She answered his cable without waiting for the letter that followed.

"Thank you a thousand times," she said. "I have always something new to
thank you for. What should I have done if your book hadn't come to me,
and given me you for my friend? For a little while, I almost stopped
believing in God, for life looked so cruel, not only to me but to every
one--or nearly every one--I know, since the war began. Far and wide as
I looked, I could find no mercy, no pity. How ungrateful I was, when
all the time God was putting it into your mind to write that book, and
sending your friendship to me when I needed it as one needs air to
breathe!

"Do you know, you are teaching me to _think?_ I feel now as if I had
never really _thought_ before. I just dreamed, or brooded. If _he_ had
lived, I should have learned from him. That is, I should, if our souls
hadn't gone on forever being shy of one another. When I had him with
me, I was too busy loving him and being afraid that he wouldn't love
me, to think about anything outside, though his mind had given my mind
a great lift, even then. And another thing I want to tell you. Your way
of thinking reminds me of him. I believe you must be a little like
him--mentally, I mean. Believing this will make me trust and turn to
you, as one who knows the things I long to know. You have his name,
too, 'John.' And I am going to sign my name always after this, not a
mere impersonal initia