centuries. Yet if it achieve my purpose for me, I care not if it is
forgotten in ten years.


"_February_ 12, 18--.

"I have seen him to-day, the only man I have ever loved. He loves me no
more. It is ended. What did _I_ say? I do not remember. I knew it all,
the moment he entered the room. When he went, I said: 'We shall never
meet again, I think. Kiss me on the lips once, as in the old days.'

"He looked down at me curiously. He hesitated a moment--then he bent and
kissed my mouth. The room whirled about me. Strange sounds were in my
ears; for one moment he loved me again. I threw myself in a chair, and
buried my face in my hands. I cried out to God in my desperate misery.
It was over, and he was gone--he who begged once for a kiss, as a slave
might beg for bread!

"And now in all this world are but two good things left me, my Art and
little Elsie. Oh! my book, I clung to it in that bitter moment, as the
work which should save my reason to live for the child."


"_February_ 18, 18--

"I have written continuously. I drugged myself with writing as if it
were chloral, against the stabs of memory that assaulted me. There will
be chapters I shall never read, those that I wrote as I sat by my desk
the day after the 12th, the cold, gray light pouring in on me, sometimes
holding my pen suspended while I was having a mortal struggle with my