Good night, dearest; I am your
          
                                                Emilia.

LETTER XXV.

Graysmill, January 29th.

It is so easy to imagine the bright side of things when one is too far away to see the truth.  Silly Constance, cruel Constance, what is the use of sending me such words of false hope?  It does not follow, because you love me best of all the world, that another should do likewise.  No, no; you know nothing at all about it, and yet in spite of all reason, I catch at every straw you send drifting towards me.  Once and for all, of course he loves me, but it stands just so.  He loves me too well in one way to love me in another.  If he loved me less, he might love me more.  I have said all this to Jane.  She declares that the only reason why he is not in love with me is that an obstacle stands in the way which has stood in the way all along, and which he has never dreamed of surmounting.  She means my accursed money.  I told her she was completely mistaken; that love, inevitable love, knows nothing of obstacles; besides, this could not be an obstacle between him and me,—­he is too unworldly to be the slave of such prejudice.  If I thought she was right, who knows but what I should send my money spinning into the lap of Charity, and let that lady dispense it as indiscriminately and wastefully as she pleases.  No, no; the fault lies in another direction.  There has been a little mistake somewhere; I am not the lost half of his soul, for all that he is mine.

Little Constance, I think now that perhaps you were right when you said that I was not altogether a woman.  I am certainly not made as a woman should be.  A woman may return love, but she must never dare to give it.  I have been guilty of this folly, and now, what is to become of me?

We are such fools, we women.  When a man loves, he is all that he was, plus love; when we love, we throw ourselves headlong into the flood, and are nothing that we were.

So now you know all about it, and can prepare yourself for a gay companion.  I have made up my mind to leave England, and join you in Vienna.  No, it must be Italy; you must leave Vienna and come towards me.

You cannot see that between the last sentence and this there is a pause of ten minutes.  It is all very well for me to talk of leaving Graysmill; I do talk of it, the words are words, but I don’t understand them.  I cannot leave; I ought to,—­yet, Constance, I cannot leave him!

Write, you, and tell me where we shall meet; not in Florence, I could not bear that.  And yet, perhaps, yes, in Florence.  It will have to be, and I shall not realise that I have left him until I am with you again.  There is comfort in that thought.  One can do anything, after all, with a little determination, can’t one, Constantia?  Not that you can judge, you who never had any.  Perhaps I have none myself, who knows?  I have so deceived myself in loving Gabriel, and laid bare such great and unknown weakness in my own bosom, that all the world is upside down for me, and I can find my way no longer.