etc., will serve as a sufficient excuse.

Constance, I am going to tell you all; I trust so to your
understanding and your love. It seems strange, perhaps, to speak as
I am about to speak; I shall burst if I don't. It is this: I love
him, I love him horribly, horribly; I cannot bear it. Why must one
do this? Why couldn't it last, our white friendship? On his side it
might; he loves me, I know, but only as I loved him at first. He
loves me very much. I am grown in a way indispensable to him, but
his love makes him content; it will not kill him. Mine is grown
unbearable.

Perhaps I should have told you this before, yet I have not known it
very long. I knew some time ago that all my joy is in him; he has
been for many weeks the goal of my eyes, the centre of my thought;
the time I spent away from him was dead time; when I was with him I
was flooded in peace. But all this was joy, not pain. That came
later; the time I spent away from him was no longer dead, it was
living longing.

One day, about a week ago, I had forgotten him (I forget how I
managed that!), but suddenly the thought of him returned to me. I
felt a sudden sharp pain at my heart, a sort of aching that tingled
through me to my very finger-tips. I knew then how it was with me.

Next day I did not go to meet him in the wood as I had promised; I
went straight to the cottage; I feared myself. When he returned at
tea-time, he came up to me and took my hand with more friendship
than of wont.