So I did not say a De Profundis. I know that God exists; but the depths seemed too deep for him to pity and the heights too high for him to hear. I clanged the churchyard gate behind me harshly; and it was in vain that the jet-black letters on the snow-white plank of the new grave whispered: "If you please." _Monday_, 2.45 _p.m._ Susan is behaving strangely, and I don’t like it. There is a letter from Ruddington. When it arrived, Susan made no secret of it; but she has neither shown it to me nor mentioned it, although she has been with me all the morning. In one sense I grant that it is Susan’s letter, not mine, and that she is under no obligation to let me read a line. But, in another sense, it is as much mine as hers. The letters Ruddington writes are answers to my letters, not Susan’s. The Susan he thinks about and writes to is no longer the palpable Susan with whom he fell in love at Traxelby. He has a new Susan, a composite Susan, a Susan who never was and never will be, a Susan idealized as much from my letters as from his recollections of her face. If Susan, at last, feels competent to compose and write her replies, well and good. But she should say so. To take back the whole affair into her own hands without a word is rather cool. Not that I care one jot about what Ruddington has written. But I do feel rather sick about Susan’s uncouthness. After the pains I’ve taken, it is so monstrously ungrateful. _Bed-time_. Susan drifted down the garden path about three o’clock, and came to anchor beside my chair. She began turning up the gravel with her toe. "He wrote this morning, Miss," she said suddenly. "I know, Susan," I said, "I saw the envelope." Susan went on furrowing the gravel. "Would you like to read it, Miss?" she asked. "Perhaps there’s no necessity," I answered a little stiffly. "Perhaps you can manage the reply yourself." "I wish you would read it, Miss," she said, after a very long pause. "Where is it?" "Upstairs, Miss." "Then how can I read it?" "Please, Miss," said Susan coyly. "I don’t like to show it you. It’s so loving." "Indeed," I said. "Then be sure you don’t worry me with it unless you find you can’t answer it." "Yes, Miss," said Susan. She went back to the hotel with a clouded face.