I am glad with all my soul for your happiness, Mate, the tenderest blessing that lips could frame would not express half that is in my heart. There is nothing so sure in life as that love is best of all. You think you know it after a few weeks of loving, I know I know after years of grief and suffering and despair. From the time when you used to stand between me and childish punishments, through all the happy days of girlhood, the sorrowful days of womanhood, on up to the bitter-sweet present, you have never failed me. I want to give you a whole heart full of gladness and rejoicing, I want to crowd out my own little wail of bereavement, but Oh! Mate, I never felt so alone in my life before! I am not asking you to tell me who the man is. I am trying not to _guess_. Tell me what you like and when you like, and rest assured that whatever comes, my heart is with you--and with him. HIROSHIMA, January, 1905. It has been longer than usual since I wrote but somehow things have been going wrong with me of late and I didn't want to bother you. But oh! Mate, I haven't anybody else in the world to come to, and you'll have to forgive me for bringing a cloud across your happiness. The whole truth is I'm worsted! The fight has been too much. Days, weeks, months of homesickness have piled up on top of me until all my courage and my control, all my _will_ seem paralysed. Night after night I lie awake and stare out into the dark, and staring back at me is the one word "_alone_". In the daytime, I try to keep somebody with me all the time, I have gotten afraid of myself. My face in the mirror does not seem to belong to me, it is a curious unfamiliar face that I do not know. Every once in a while I want to beat the air and scream, but I don't do it. I clench my fists and set my teeth and teach, teach, teach. But I can't go on like this forever! Flesh and spirit rebel against a lifetime of it! Haven't I paid my penalty? Aren't the lightness and brightness and beauty ever coming back? On my desk is a contract waiting to be signed for another four years at the school. Beside it is a letter from Brother, begging me to drop everything and come home at once. Can you guess what the temptation is? On the one hand ceaseless work, uncongenial surroundings and exile, on the other luxury, loved ones,--and dependence. I must give my answer to-morrow and Heaven only knows what it will be. One thing is certain I am tired of doing hard things, I am tired of being brave. It is storming fearfully but I am going out to mail this letter. If I cable that I am coming you must be the first one to know why. I have tried to grow into something higher and better, God knows I have, but I am afraid I am a house built on the sands after all. Don't be hard on me, Mate, whatever comes remember I have tried. HIROSHIMA, 3 hours later.