Ah, my own one Beloved, whom I have loved so openly and so secretly, if
you were as I think some other men are, I could believe that I had given
you so much of my love that you had tired of me because I had made no
favor of it but had let you see that I was your faithful subject and
servant till death: so that after twenty years you, chancing upon an
empty day in your life, might come back and find me still yours;--as
to-morrow, if you came, you would.
My pride died when I saw love looking out of your eyes at me; and it has
not come back to me now that I see you no more. I have no wish that it
should. In all ways possible I would wish to be as I was when you loved
me; and seek to change nothing except as you bid me.
LETTER LXII.
So I have seen you, Beloved, again, after fearing that I never should. A
day's absence from home has given me this great fortune.
The pain of it was less than it might have been, since our looks did not
meet. To have seen your eyes shut out their recognition of me would have
hurt me too much: I must have cried out against such a judgment. But you
passed by the window without knowing, your face not raised: so little
changed, yet you have been ill. Arthur tells me everything: he knows I
must have any word of you that goes begging.
Oh, I hope you are altogether better, happier! An illness helps some
people: the worst of their sorrow goes with the health that breaks down
under it; and they come out purged into a clearer air, and are made
whole for a fresh trial of life.
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