He has not come as yet; and now I must not expect it. You have written, you say, to friends at Florence, to see him, If he perhaps should return;—but that is surely unlikely. Has he not written to you?—he did not know your direction. Oh, how strange never once to have told him where you were going! Yet if he only wrote to Florence, that would have reached you. If what you say he said was true, why has he not done so? Is he gone back to Rome, do you think, to his Vatican marbles?— O my dear Miss Roper, forgive me! do not be angry!— You have written to Florence;—your friends would certainly find him Might you not write to him?—but yet it is so little likely! I shall expect nothing more.—Ever yours, your affectionate Mary. VIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. I cannot stay at Florence, not even to wait for a letter. Galleries only oppress me. Remembrance of hope I had cherished (Almost more than as hope, when I passed through Florence the first time) Lies like a sword in my soul. I am more a coward than ever, Chicken-hearted, past thought. The caffès and waiters distress me. All is unkind, and, alas! I am ready for any one’s kindness. Oh, I knew it of old, and knew it, I thought, to perfection, If there is any one thing in the world to preclude all kindness, It is the need of it,—it is this sad, self-defeating dependence. Why is this, Eustace? Myself, were I stronger, I think I could tell you. But it is odd when it comes. So plumb I the deeps of depression, Daily in deeper, and find no support, no will, no purpose. All my old strengths are gone. And yet I shall have to do something. Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens all locks, Is not _I will_, but _I must_. I must,—I must,—and I do it. * * * * * After all, do I know that I really cared so about her? Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her image; For when I close my eyes, I see, very likely, St. Peter’s, Or the Pantheon façade, or Michel Angelo’s figures, Or, at a wish, when I please, the Alban hills and the Forum,— But that face, those eyes,—ah, no, never anything like them; Only, try as I will, a sort of featureless outline, And a pale blank orb, which no recollection will add to. After all, perhaps there was something factitious about it; I have had pain, it is true: I have wept, and so have the actors. * * * * *