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221 STRAIT IS THE GATE

mad hope that he might have come back. I called. I groped in the darkness. I have come in again to write to him. I cannot accept my grief.


What has happened? What did I say to him? What did I do? Why do I always want to exaggerate my virtue to him? What can be the worth of a virtue which my whole heart denies? I was secretly false to the words which God set upon my lips. In spite of all that my heart was bursting with, I could bring nothing out. Jerome! Jerome, my unhappy friend in whose presence my heart bleeds and in whose absence I perish, believe nothing of all I said to you just now, but the words spoken by my love.


Tore up my letter, then wrote again . . . . Here is the dawn, grey, wet with tears, as sad as my thoughts. I hear the first sounds of the farm and everything that was sleeping re-awakens to life . "Arise, now. The hour is at hand ... " My letter shall not go.


5th October. Oh, jealous God, who hast despoiled me, take Thou possession of my heart. All warmth henceforth has forsaken i; nothing will touch it more .

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