Book Five The End of the Beginning Chapter 1 The Deeds of the Farm

(From the Shorthand Notes of John Burke.) Sunday, June 13.

In three days it will be a year since Helen promised to marry me, and on that anniversary she will be my wife.

It is strange how exactly according to my plan things have come about--and how differently from all that I have dreamed.

She is the most beautiful woman in the world; she is to be my wife sooner than I dared to hope--and--I must be good to her. I must love her.

Did I ever doubt my love until she claimed it five days ago with such confidence in my loyalty? In that moment, as I went to her, as I took her in my arms, as I felt that she needed me and trusted me, with the suddenness of a revelation I knew-It was hard to meet Ethel--and Milly and Mrs. Baker afterwards.

To-day, in preparing to move to our new home, I came across the rough notes I wrote last December, when the marvel of Helen's beauty was fresh to me. As I read the disjointed and half incredulous words I had set to paper, I found myself living over again those days of Faery and enchantment.

Custom has somewhat dulled the shock of her beauty; I have grown quickly used to her as the most radiantly lovely of created beings; my mind has been drawn to dwell upon moral problems and to sorrow at seeing her gradually become the victim of her beauty--her nature, once as fine as the outward form that clothes it, warped by constant adulation, envy and strife; until-But it is a miracle! As unbelievable, as unthinkable as it was on the very first day when that glowing dream of loveliness made manifest floated toward me in the little room overlooking Union Square, and I was near swooning with pure delight of vision.