"My dear boy," she wrote, "by the time you get this you will be back in the thick of things. If I have given you anything that will help you to go on it's all I want. You must just look on this past month as a holiday snatched from the lap of the gods, and realize, what you're always telling me, that what one's once had one has for always. For there can't be any more, and I'm not even going to write to you. Oh, I feel as though I were failing you in not writing, but I always meant not to, even when you were making plans about it. Letters keep up an atmosphere, and that's better not. Yes, I know what you mean about spiritual meeting. I'm sort of fused with you as I write. I'm not here--or even in the future with you--as you read, for I've pulled the future to me and made it now, now, now, and I'm with you, in the present, as you read this, and I'm drawing your tired head to me, and I feel the very way the thick stuff of your coat arches up under the pressure of my arm. I am you in every bit of me as I write; not yours, but you. But, for the future, in that way only. I felt nothing wrong in all I gave you here, because you needed what I had to give and we were hurting nobody. I'm sure that's the great thing, to hurt nobody, and that includes you and even me. It would be hurting both of us if we were to go on writing because it would keep it all up and we shouldn't be able to meet again just as friends, and if we make the break we shall; we are strong--or weak--enough for that. Richard, let your answer to this be a long one, won't you? Try and tell me everything I shall want to hear in it because it will be all I shall have to live on. Dear child, take care of yourself, don't overwork and don't forget that open windows are the best thing for that throat of yours. Don't let things at home worry you more than you can help, and always remember there's no need to worry about me at all. "SOPHIA." * * * * *