Why do I write this?  It is merely as a picture before me.  I feel very little now; I am so cold.

And now he walks home across the heath.  Good night, Gabriel.  Why did he kiss my eyes?  It was better the first time.

All past, all gone, all dead.  I cannot see that I need live in this graveyard.

Perhaps I too shall die; who knows?

THE POSTSCRIPT.

There was a man who made unto himself wings, and thought to soar upon them; but, as he rose into high Heaven, the Sun melted the wax wherewith he had fastened the pinions on to his body, and the poor fool, sinking to earth, was drowned in deep waters.

Now, as Icarus fell into the sea, what lesson would have risen from his heart unto the sons of men?

This?

“Children of earth, the earthworm crawls in its blindness; be content, for ye are such.”

Or this?

“Make wings unto yourselves and fly!  My wings were strong, and should have borne me further; I fall and die, yet I have seen the Sun.”

* * * * *

I know not.  Nor know I how to read the lesson of my own life.  I, too, can only say, “My wings were strong, and should have borne me further.”

I shall not burn my letters and my journal, as I meant to do.  Here they lie in my lap; I meant to burn them to-night.  But now, after reading them through, I think that I shall tie them together and lay them by, adding a record of that which came to pass.

When I am dead, some human being may read my words, some other pilgrim on the narrow way, seeing where I faltered and fell, may be able to step onward with the greater firmness.  And yet, I doubt it; there were no need to weep over our faults, might they but save another’s tears.  Man learns all truth through his own pain.

I married him.  It was a great sin.

It would be easier to sit in judgment on oneself, did straight and simple purpose lead to a single act.  My purpose was clear enough; I meant to give him his liberty, I knew that it was my duty to do so, but the blood of the heart was master.

Had I been physically strong at the time, had not many weeks of doubt and misery affected me bodily as well as mentally, I might perhaps have had the strength to fulfil my intentions.  I say perhaps; we cannot tell what might have been.  And it is particularly in such cases as mine, when body and spirit are alike affected, that we are the most easily thrown out of balance by unforeseen influences, by some sudden wave of feeling, by the mood of another, by the interference of time and place.

The day after I made the last entry in my journal, I did not see Gabriel until the evening.  Constance had a headache, my poor sweet, and wished to be alone; so I, too, was alone nearly all day.  And all day long I rehearsed the scene to come, gathering all my strength together, telling him in my imagination what I had to tell, in twenty different ways.  When evening came, my heart was dead.  I felt absolutely nothing.  I remember singing as I made myself tidy for supper, and being so offended with myself for doing so that I left off, in order to simulate, at least, a depression I no longer felt.