Letter LXXV

Dearest: There is always one possibility which I try to remember in all I
write: even where there is no hope a thing remains possible:--that your
eye may some day come to rest upon what I leave here. And I would have
nothing so dark as to make it seem that I were better dead than to have
come to such a pass through loving you. If I felt that, dearest, I should
not be writing my heart out to you, as I do: when I cease doing that I
shall indeed have become dead and not want you any more, I suppose. How
far I am from dying, then, now!

So be quite sure that if now, even now,--for to-day of all days has
seemed most dark--if now I were given my choice--to have known you or
not to have known you,--Beloved, a thousand times I would claim to keep
what I have, rather than have it taken away from me. I cannot forget
that for a few months I was the happiest woman I ever knew: and that
happiness is perhaps only by present conditions removed from me. If I
have a soul, I believe good will come back to it: because I have done
nothing to deserve this darkness unless by loving you: and if by
loving you, I am glad that the darkness came.

Beloved, you have the yes and no to all this: I have not, and cannot
have. Something that you have not chosen for me to know, you know: it
should be a burden on your conscience, surely, not to have shared it
with me. Maybe there is something I know that you do not. In the way of
sorrow, I think and wish--yes. In the way of love, I wish to think--no.