Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/136

thing. I shall fold it in this note, it is so small. For when I tried to think what I could give you, it seemed to me that there was nothing left. I have given you all I am. How can I, who am so spendthrift of myself for your dear sake—how can I offer you any small thing on this, on this first Christmas of our life together? I chose the little gold Madonna for your watch-guard because I could not bring myself to anything else. It was made for me in Paris (if you care to know), but it is to me as if Love had ordered it for me out of heaven. Wear it, Dear, because you love me, because you love us.

"I find I cannot write to-night; I cannot think; I dare not dream. I find it out of my power to admit your soul altogether to my own. For I begin to feel now, as I used to do before we were married, that a woman must not exact too much of a man; she must not expect him to understand; she must remind herself that he is a man, and cannot. For a time we have been one, you and I, husband and wife, and the eternal and almighty difference has been smitten out between us by strong love, which makes of twain one being.

"Now, at the very time when we begin to be dearest to each other, closest, most sacred, now we begin again, for I do perceive it, while most