And I also learned, or thought I learned, that your father's real objection to my suit lay not so much in his hostility to my views, as in his fear of losing you out of his life. And as I talked with him, even plead with him, I was filled with pity and with something like remorse for the sorrow I was to bring upon his heart. He is a saint, dear Love, but very human. You have said that I acted like a robber toward you. I could smile at your fury, but to your father I do indeed play the robber's part. Yet in the end I think he will learn to trust me and will give me the one jewel he treasures in this world. Shall a man do more than this? It is hard to remain in this uncertainty, but our love at least is all our own. XXXVIII JESSICA TO PHILIP I have just received your letter, dear lover, and as I read it, all my lilies changed once more to roses--as they did, you remember how often, while you were here. This is your miracle, my Philip, for in the South you know we do not have the brilliant colour so noticeable in your Northern women. But now I have only to think of you, to whisper your name, to recall something you said or did, and immediately I feel the red rose of love burn out on cheek and brow. Indeed, I think it was this magic of colour that made the difference in my appearance which seems to have mystified you. And will it please you to learn that at the end of each day, as the shadows begin to crowd down upon the world, I keep a tryst with you beneath the old Merlin oak where you first clasped me breathless and terrified in your arms? (Be sure, dear Heart, on this account, he will be the first sage in the forest to wear a green beard of bloom next spring!) And each time the memory of that moment, which began in such fright for me, and ended in such rapture for us both, rushes over me, I wonder that I could ever have feared the man whom I love. But you must not infer from this that I can be prodigal of my kisses. Only, in the future, I shall have a saner reason for withholding them,--that of economy. For if frugality is ever wise, and extravagance forever foolish, it must be true in love as in the less romantic experiences of life. And now I have a sensation for you, Mr. Towers. Now that love has finished me, I have found my real self once more. I am no longer the bewildered woman, embarrassed by a thousand new sensations, lost in the maze of your illusions, but I am Jessica again, as remote from you, by moods, as the little green buds that swing high upon the boughs of these trees, wrapped yet in their brown winter furs. I mean that now I am able even to detach my thoughts from you at will and to live with the sort of personal emphasis I had before I knew you. I think it is because at last I am so sure of you that I can afford to forget you! How do you like that?