Goodbyes are hateful to me. I never go
to trains to see people off, nor down to piers to wave handkerchiefs,
nor do I go to funerals. Those who indulge their grief do so because
their grief is not very deep. I cannot go to London to bid you
goodbye unless you promise to see me in the convent. Worse than a
death-bed goodbye would be the goodbye I should bid you, and it,
too, would be for eternity. But say I can go to see you in the
convent, and I will come to London to see you.
"Yours,
"OWEN."
* * * * *
"MY DEAR OWEN,--You have written me a beautiful letter. Not one word
of it would I have unwritten, and it is a very great grief to me
that I cannot write you a letter which would please you as much as
your letter pleases me. No woman, since the world began, has had
such a lover as I have had, and yet I am putting him aside. What a
strange fatality! Yet I cannot do otherwise. But there is
consolation for me in the thought that you understand; had it been
otherwise, it would have been difficult for me to bear it. You know
I am not acting selfishly, but because I cannot do otherwise. I have
been through a great deal, Owen, more, perhaps, even than you can
imagine.
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