look at the stars? Believe me, all the lesser loves have
their rightful place, which should be more definitely assured because of
the greater light.

[Sidenote: Rosemary's Need]

"I am pleading not only for her, but for you. Tell her everything, if
you choose, or if you feel that you must in order to be honest. I am
sure you can make her understand.

"The door of the House of Life is open for you and for me, but it is
closed against her. It is in your power at least to set it ajar for her;
to admit her, too, into full fellowship through striving and through
love.

"She will help you with your vineyard people, and, perhaps, come to
peace that way. Her unhappy face as I saw it last haunts me--I cannot
help feeling that I am in some way responsible. She needs you and what
you can give her, more, perhaps, than I, who shall never have it again.

"Never! The word, as I write it, tolls through my consciousness like a
funeral knell. Never to see your face again, or to touch your hand, or
to hear you say you love me. Never to feel your arms holding me close,
your heart beating against mine, never to thrill with ecstasy in every
fibre of me in answer to your kiss.

"Only the silence, broken, perhaps, by an occasional letter, and the
call in the night, bridging the darkness and distance between us, to be
answered for one little hour by love, surging from one to the other and
back again.

[Sidenote: Caught in a Web]

"And yet these thoughts of ours are as a weaver's shuttle, plying
endlessly through the web of night and space and time. One thought may
make a slender thread, indeed, but what of the countless thoughts that
fly back and forth, weaving and interweaving as they go? Shall they not
make first a thread, and then a cord, then a web, and then a fabric,
until, at last, there is no separation, but that of the body, which
counts for naught?

"Dear Heart, you mean so much to me, are so much. From you and from your
love for me I take fresh courage every day. From your strength I make
sure of my own strength, from your tenderness I gather compassion, and
from your steadfastness I gain the hope that leads me onward, the belief
that enables me to face each day bravely and with a smile.

"Deep in my heart, I hold fast to one great joy. Sometimes I close the
door quickly upon it and bar up the passage, lest anyone should guess
that there, within a bare white chamber, is erected the high altar of my
soul, where the lights