So, before I tear this book into tatters and burn it till not a letter of his name remains, once for all I will confess. I love Ruddington. I fell asleep last night with his rose-leaf, my stolen rose-leaf, under my pillow. I dreamed a dream of peace--a peace as sweet and strong as death. I dreamed I was at rest within his arms. And I awoke in the loneliness of the rainy daybreak, holding out my hands to him and murmuring his name. _Tuesday_, 2 _p.m._ I shall burn this book. But not to-day. The world seems hushed, remote, unreal. To-day, I seem to belong, not to Life, but all to Love and Death. As soon as the sun had conquered the mist, we went down, Susan and I, to bathe. The tide was high, with warm boisterous waves. Perhaps I went out too far, or breasted the rude buffeting too long. Without warning, my strength forsook me. I half swooned in the water. The undertow drew my feet away from their hold on the ribbed sand, and, at the same moment, a towering, craggy wave broke with a shattering crash full over me. Involuntarily, by the animal impulse of a creature clinging to life, I raised a foolish cry which filled my mouth with water; I threw up foolish hands, and straightway began to sink. But, instantly, calm and self-control returned. The great waters were chanting in my ears. I even opened my eyes and looked up through the green crystal at the noon-day sun--a round, moon-like sun, mild and cool and kind. I believed it was the end. Death was all round me and under me and over me, like the sea. But I was not afraid. Till Death was near, I had not dreamed that he could be so sweet. To sink down, down, down in his arms was not a frightful descent into horror; it was a gentle settling into unutterable peace. But it was not to be. For the present I belong to Life, who is so niggardly and cruel, not to Love who is so lavish, or to Death who is so kind. Susan had seen me collapse; and when a thunderous wave swung me towards her she plucked me from its grasp. Susan does not know that Death has laid his lips on mine and that I have looked into his pitiful eyes. She thinks I merely lost my footing, and she knows nothing of the swoon. But she says I look ill and shaken; and I do believe she has forgotten her own affairs in mine. _At sunset_. Susan won’t let me leave my room. She has guessed that this morning’s affair was more serious than a mere swallowing of salt water, and she insists that I am an invalid for the rest of the day. Georgette has made a crackling wood-fire. The logs rest on quaint old iron dogs and, in one sense, the blaze is cheerful. In another sense it is depressing. The sun has set early, and these logs are the funeral-pyre of summer. Everybody is so kind. Georgette set a table between the hearth and the window, and Madame has sent up such a _poulet en casserole_ as I have never tasted before. Dupoirier chose out a Burgundy, dry and bold and strong.