it lasted,--nor what poverty meant. And Perny says so, too,
and Van. Barry, of course, still has his salary. But I
realize now, and I am not going to let you leave comfort and
plenty, without care, to come here and share only privation
and care, without comfort, with me. It breaks my heart to
give you up, Dorry, but I know it is right, and while you
might still be willing, if I asked it, to fulfil your
promise to me, and do not realize all that it would mean, I
cannot ask you--I cannot allow you--to do it.

"Some day, Dorry, things may be different again. Some day,
if we both live and you are still free, and still care, I
may come to you and ask you to give me back your promise.
For you are free now, Dorry. I would be less than I am if I
did not give you your freedom now, after holding out to you
all the promises of wealth, and leading you to believe in
all my vain dreams. How beautiful you were through it all!
You only thought of others. Dear heart, what will the poor
poets and artists do now without the beautiful place you
were going to build for them? I suppose they must always be
poor dreamers like me to the end, and it is that poverty and
that end, darling, that I cannot ask you to share.

"Good-by, Dorry. We have been friends from childhood, and
friends we must still, be, for, whatever comes, I am always

"Your faithful
"TRUE."

"P.S. I believe I wrote you that your Christmas remembrance
came. I thank you for it once more. It is very beautiful. I
thought you might care for the book because it is an
autograph copy. I must not forget to wish you a happy and
beautiful New Year. It will be different from what we had
planned--different from the year just passed, which, I
suppose, has been happy, too, though I would not, for some
reasons, wish to repeat it. I forgot to tell you about my
picture. I am only waiting for a cold sleet to come, so I
can finish it. I had intended it, you know, for Perny's
Christmas, to hang over his desk in the new house; but there
is no new house, and he would not let me give it to him now,
so I shall try to sell it.

"TRUE."

XX

THE BARK OF THE WOLF

In the studios near Union Square, where two artists and a writer lived
and toiled together, there was an atmosphere of heavy gloom. It was a