You will see what it is, and why it was written, so I’ll say no more on that subject.

I am afraid you’ll find it very egotistical, being mainly about myself; but I seem to have been looking into my soul all the time, and when one does that, and gets down to the deep places, one meets all other souls there, so perhaps I have been writing the lives of some women as well.

I once thought I could write a real book (you’ll see what vain and foolish things I thought, especially in my darker moments) to show what a woman’s life may be when, from any cause whatsoever, she is denied the right God gave her of choosing the best for herself and her children.

There is a dream lying somewhere there, dear, which is stirring the slumber of mankind, but the awakening will not be in my time certainly, and perhaps not even in Girlie’s.

And yet, why not?

Do you know, dearest, what it was in your wonderful book which thrilled me most?  It was your description of the giant iceberg you passed in the Antarctic Ocean—­five hundred feet above the surface of the sea and therefore five hundred below it, going steadily on and on, against all the force of tempestuous wind and wave, by power of the current underneath.

Isn’t the movement of all great things in life like that, dearest?  So perhaps the world will be a better place for Girlie than it has been for me.  And in any case, I shall always feel that, after all and in spite of everything, it has been glorious to be a woman.

* * * * *

And now, my own darling, though we are only to be separated for a little while, I want to write what I should like to say when I part from you to-morrow if I did not know that something in my throat would choke me.

I want to tell you again that I love you dearly, that I have never loved anybody but you, and that no marriage vows will keep me from loving you to the last.

I want to thank you for the great, great love you have given me in return—­all the way back from the time when I was a child.  Oh, my dearest, may God for ever bless you for the sunshine you have brought into my life—­every single day of it, joyful days and sorrowful ones, bright days and dark, but all shining with the glory of your love.

Never allow yourself to think that my life has not been a happy one.  Looking back on it now I feel as if I have always had happiness.  And when I have not had happiness I have had something far higher and better—­blessedness.

I have had such joy in my life, dear—­joy in the beauty of the world, in the sunshine and the moon and the stars and the flowers and the songs of the birds, and then (apart from the divine love that is too holy to speak about) in my religion, in my beloved Church, in the love of my dear mother and my sweet child, and above all—­above all in you.

I feel a sense of sacred thankfulness to God for giving you to me, and if it has not been for long in this life, it will be for ever in the next.