"Some day," the woman says to herself, half knowing that that day can never dawn, "some day I shall tell him of these awful months, full of days like years, and nights like nothing, please God, which shall ever be endured again. Some day--it may be a long time off--but some day I shall say to him: 'Why did you leave me?' And he will tell me his foolish reasons, and we shall lean together in tears. And surely some day I shall say to him: 'I always burnt your letters for fear I might die suddenly and others should read them. But see, here are the envelopes, every one. That envelope is nearly worn out. Do you remember what you said inside it? That one is still new. I only read the letter it had in it once. How could you--could you write it?'" * * * * * "Some day," the man says to himself, when the work of the day is done--"some day my hour will come. She thinks me harsh and cold, but some day, when these evil days are past, and she understands, I will wrap her round with a tenderness such as she has never dreamed of. I will show her what a lover can be. She finds the world hard, and its ways a weariness--let her; but some day she shall own to me, to me here in this room, that she did not know what life was, what joy and peace were, until she let my love take her." Yet he half knows she will never come, that woman whose coming seems inevitable as spring. So the heart comforts itself, telling itself fairy stories until the day dawns when Reality's stern, beneficent figure enters our dwelling, and we know at last that not one word of all we have spoken in imagination will ever be said. What we have suffered we have suffered. The one for whom it was borne will hear no further word from us. The moth and the rust have corrupted. The thieves have broken through and stolen. Then rise up, lay hold of your pilgrim's staff, and take up life with a will. CHAPTER XIV "My river runs to thee: Blue sea, wilt welcome me?" --EMILY DICKINSON. The winter, that dealt so sternly with Janet, smiled on Anne. She spent Christmas in London, for the Duke was, or at least he said he was, in too delicate a state of health to go to his ancestral halls in the country, where the Duchess had repaired alone, believing herself to be but the herald of the rest of her family; and where she was expending her fearful energy on Christmas trees, magic-lanterns, ventriloquists, entertainments of all kinds for children and adults, tenants, inmates of workhouses, country neighbours, Sunday School teachers, Mothers' Unions, Ladies' Working Guilds, Bands of Hope, etc., etc. She was in her element.