The open letter lay at her side; she
glanced at it with soft eyes. The man with the languid eyelids must have
been strangely moved before his hand set down those words:
"Let me come back to you! My darling, let me put my hand round you, and
guard you from all the world. As my wife they shall never touch you. I
have learnt to love you more wisely, more tenderly, than of old; you shall
have perfect freedom. Lyndall, grand little woman, for your own sake be my
wife!
"Why did you send that money back to me? You are cruel to me; it is not
rightly done."
She rolled the little red pencil softly between her fingers, and her face
grew very soft. Yet:
"It cannot be," she wrote; "I thank you much for the love you have shown
me; but I cannot listen. You will call me mad, foolish--the world would do
so; but I know what I need and the kind of path I must walk in. I cannot
marry you. I will always love you for the sake of what lay by me those
three hours; but there it ends. I must know and see, I cannot be bound to
one whom I love as I love you. I am not afraid of the world--I will fight
the world. One day--perhaps it may be far off--I shall find what I have
wanted all my life; something nobler, stronger than I, before which I can
kneel down. You lose nothing by not having me now; I am a weak, selfish,
erring woman.
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