ter to moisten my dry, parched throat. I cannot answer when
anyone speaks to me, for I do not hear what is said. It does not seem
that I shall ever sleep again. Yet God, pitiless and unforgiving, lets
me live on."

The remainder of the page was blank. The next entry was dated: "_June
tenth. Night._"

[Sidenote: No Other Way]

"I had to go. There was no other way. I had to sit and listen. I saw the
blind man in the room beyond, sitting beside the dark woman with the
hard face. She had the little lame baby in her arms--the baby who is a
year or so younger than my own son. I smelled the tuberoses and the
great clusters of white lilacs. And I saw her, dead, with her golden
braids on either side of her, smiling, in her white casket. When no one
was looking, I touched her hand. I called softly, 'Constance.' She did
not answer, so I knew she was dead.

"I had to go to the churchyard, with the others. I was compelled to look
at the grave and to see the white casket lowered in. I heard that awful
fall of earth upon her and a voice saying those terrible words, 'Dust to
dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes.' The blind man sobbed aloud when
the earth fell. The dark woman with the hard face did not seem to care.
I could have strangled her, but I had to keep my hands still.

"They said that she had not been sleeping and that she took too much
laudanum by mistake. It was not a mistake, for she was not of that sort.
She did it purposely. She did it because of that one mad hour of full
confession. I have killed her. After three years of self-control, it
failed me, and I went mad. It was my fault, for if I had not failed, she
would not have gone mad, too. I have killed her."

"_June fifteenth. Midnight._

"I am calmer now. I can think more clearly. I have been alone in the
woods all day and every day since--. I have been thinking, thinking,
thinking, and going over everything. She left no word for me; she was so
sure I would understand. I do not understand yet, but I shall.

[Sidenote: Estranged]

"There was no wrong between us, there never would have been. We were
divided by the whole earth, denied by all the leagues of sundering sea.
Now we are estranged by all the angels of heaven and all the hosts of
hell.

"My arms ache for her--my lips hunger for hers. In that mysterious
darkness, does she want me, too? Did her heart cry out for me as mine
for her, until the blood of the poppies mingled with hers and brought
the whit