MAUDE.

Woking, June 11th.

My Own Dearest Girlie,--How perfectly sweet you are! I read and re-
read your letter, and I understand more and more how infinitely your
nature is above mine. And your conception of love--how lofty and
unselfish it is! How could I lower it by thinking that any worldly
thing could be weighed for an instant against it! And yet it was
just my jealous love for you, and my keenness that you should never
be the worse through me, which led me to write in that way, so I will
not blame myself too much. I am really glad that the cloud came, for
the sunshine is so much brighter afterwards. And I seem to know you
so much better, and to see so much more deeply into your nature. I
knew that my own passion for you was the very essence of my soul--oh,
how hard it is to put the extreme of emotion into the terms of human
speech!--but I did not dare to hope that your feelings were as deep.
I hardly ventured to tell even you how I really felt. Somehow, in
these days of lawn-tennis and afternoon tea, a strong strong passion,
such a passion as one reads of in books and poems, seems out of
place. I thought that it would surprise, even frighten you, perhaps,
if I were to tell you all that I felt. And now you have written me
two letters, which contain all that I should have said if I had
spoken from my heart. It is all my own inmost thought, and there is
not a feeling that I do not share. O Maude, I may write lightly and
speak lightly, perhaps, sometimes, but there never was a woman,
never, never in all the story of the world, who was loved more
passionately than you are loved by me. Come what may, while the
world lasts and the breath of life is between my lips, you are the
one woman to me. If we are together, I care nothing for what the