voice into mocking laughter. I sit here, feebly striking at the
madness that is creeping nearer and nearer to me. I tell myself the
whole thing is but the fever in my brain. The bridge was rotten.
The storm was strong. The cry is but a single one among the many
voices of the mountain. Yet still I listen; and it rises, clear and
shrill, above the moaning of the pines, above the sobbing of the
waters. It beats like blows upon my skull, and I know that she will
never come again."


Extract from the last letter:

"I shall address an envelope to you, and leave it among these
letters. Then, should I never come back, some chance wanderer may
one day find and post them to you, and you will know.

"My books and writings remain untouched. We sit together of a night-
-this woman I call 'wife' and I--she holding in her hands some
knitted thing that never grows longer by a single stitch, and I with
a volume before me that is ever open at the same page. And day and
night we watch each other stealthily, moving to and fro about the
silent house; and at times, looking round swiftly, I catch the smile
upon her lips before she has time to smooth it away.

"We speak like strangers about this and that, making talk to hide our
thoughts. We make a pretence of busying ourselves about whatever
will help us to keep apart from one another.

"At night, sitting here between the shadows and the dull glow of the
smouldering twigs, I sometimes think I hear the tapping I have learnt