into it, regardless of pain, of loss, of sacrifice, that she might make
it live. She undertook her mission, that is to say, and this mission, in
some mysterious way, and according to some code of conduct undivined by
me, yet passionately honoured, was to give--regardless of herself or of
response. I caught myself sometimes thinking of a child who would
instinctively undo some earlier grievous wrong. She loved me
marvellously.

I know not how to describe to you the lavish wealth of selfless devotion
she bathed me in during the brief torturing and unfulfilled period
before the end. It made me aware of new depths and heights in human
nature. It taught me a new beauty that even my finest dreams had left
unmentioned. Into the region that great souls inhabit a glimpse was
given me. My own dreadful weakness was laid bare. And an eternal hunger
woke in me--that I might love.

That hunger remained unsatisfied. I prayed, I yearned, I suffered; I
could have decreed myself a deservedly cruel death; it seemed I
stretched my little nature to unendurable limits in the fierce hope that
the Gift of the Gods might be bestowed upon me, and that her divine
emotion might waken a response within my leaden soul. But all in vain.
My attitude, in spite of every prayer, of every effort, remained no more
than a searching and unavailing pity, but a pity that held no seed of a
mere positive emotion, least of all, of love. The heart in me lay
unredeemed; it knew ashamed and very tender gratitude; but it did not
beat for her. I could not love.

I have told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards Marion
and her beauty. It is a confession that I give into my own safe keeping.
I think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may not