ems strange, perhaps, to speak as
I am about to speak; I shall burst if I don't. It is this: I love
him, I love him horribly, horribly; I cannot bear it. Why must one
do this? Why couldn't it last, our white friendship? On his side it
might; he loves me, I know, but only as I loved him at first. He
loves me very much. I am grown in a way indispensable to him, but
his love makes him content; it will not kill him. Mine is grown
unbearable.

Perhaps I should have told you this before, yet I have not known it
very long. I knew some time ago that all my joy is in him; he has
been for many weeks the goal of my eyes, the centre of my thought;
the time I spent away from him was dead time; when I was with him I
was flooded in peace. But all this was joy, not pain. That came
later; the time I spent away from him was no longer dead, it was
living longing.

One day, about a week ago, I had forgotten him (I forget how I
managed that!), but suddenly the thought of him returned to me. I
felt a sudden sharp pain at my heart, a sort of aching that tingled
through me to my very finger-tips. I knew then how it was with me.

Next day I did not go to meet him in the wood as I had promised; I
went straight to the cottage; I feared myself. When he returned at
tea-time, he came up to me and took my hand with more friendship
than of wont.

"Oh, Emilia!" he cried, "why have you failed me? I have been so
anxious; I feared you were ill."

He said this as a brother might have said it; he looked me full in
the face as serenely as the stars at night. I looked back at him;
his calm fell upon me, and I laughed at myself for my fears. I got
better after that, yet not well; I was never at ease. To-day we were
together very long; I was perfectly happy; we had spoken of
beautiful things, calmly, in great peace. But at parting he forgot
to let my hand go; he held it so long that I had time to feel his,
and my blood bounded through me in great waves. I still think he
must have felt it; if he did, I can never look at him again.

I hate myself for loving him so; I hate myself that I suffer through
him; the fault seems his, being entirely mine.

And now I wish that I had never seen him, that all these days of joy
were wiped out of my life; for the joy is turned to misery and pain,
and for this there can be no cure. If he grew to love me as I do
him, it would be unearthly; such happiness is not for this world. I
think that if he loved me, one of us wou