Page:Wildwildheart00reesiala.pdf/196

world to him—and as you get older, he’ll go on loving you just the same; and then there are Biddy and Jo. They’re at Mrs. Marley’s now, and quite well and happy for the present, I think. Oh, don’t go on with the case—come back to Tirau—won’t you? Whatever has happened in the past is over and done with. You’ll find happiness, I believe, in the end if you only come back now. I’ll hate the case, of course, but it can’t do me much real harm—I’m not likely to marry now—anyhow.”

She stopped, and laid down her pen. When she began again the page was blotted with her tears.

“I think I ought to put this letter in the waste paper basket, and try and write something more sensible tomorrow. But I can’t go over it all again. It’ll just have to be posted tonight and take its chance. It’s stupid and muddled. You must forgive that. I was always sorry for you because somehow I knew you were unhappy. I’m still sorry for you. I wonder if we’ll ever meet again. Sometimes I was angry with you at Tirau, but nearly always I knew my anger wouldn’t last. It hasn’t tonight. It seems to have gone as I’ve been writing. We’re all like children in this world; I think, doing wrong and quarreling and hurting one another half the time without knowing why we do it, but I believe God makes allowances for us. He knows that life isn’t easy for us, and we don’t really want to be bad.

“Good night—I wish when I go to bed tonight, I needn’t wake up again. Perhaps that’s cowardly,