und their
letters, and his thoughts turned back to Kitty. There lay the little
book which had held their letters, just as he had thrust it aside. He
picked it up, idly, and glanced at the title-page: "Sonnets from the
Portuguese." How dim and far away it all seemed now, this world of the
poets in which he had once lived and dreamed, where sweetness and
beauty were enshrined as twin goddesses of light, and gentleness
brooded over all her children. What a world that had been, with its
graceful, smiling women, its refinements of thought and speech, its
aspirations and sympathies--and Kitty! He opened the book slowly,
wondering from whence it had come, and from the deckled leaves a
pressed forget-me-not fell into his hand. That was all--there was no
mark, no word, no sign but this, and as he gazed his numbed mind
groped through the past for a forget-me-not. Ah yes, he remembered!
But how far away it seemed now, the bright morning when he had met his
love on the mountain peak and the flowers had fallen from her
hair--and what an inferno of strife and turmoil had followed since! He
opened to the place where the imprint of the dainty flower lay and
read reverently:

"If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity."

The spell of the words laid hold upon as he read and he turned page
after page, following the cycle of that other woman's love--a love
which waited for years to be claimed by the master hand, never
faltering to the end. Then impulsively he reached for a fair sheet of
paper to begin a letter to Kitty, a letter which should breathe the
old gentleness and love, yet "for love's sake only." But while he sat
dreaming, thinking with what words to begin, his partner lounged in,
and Hardy put aside his pen and waited, while the big man hung around