You will wonder how I can be capable of this final cruelty--the most cruel thing that, perhaps, ever one man did to another. I will tell you why it is: it is because I hate all the Edward Burdens of the world--because, being the eternal Haves of the world, they have made their idiotic rules of the game. And you and I suffer: you and I, the eternal Have Nots. And we suffer, not because their rules bind us, but because, being the finer spirits, we are forced to set ourselves rules that are still more strict in order that, in all things, we may be the truly gallant. But why do I write: “You will wonder how I can be capable of this.” You will have understood--you who understand everything. _Eight in the morning._--Well: now we part. I am going to register the parcel containing all these letters to you. We part: and it is as if you were dropping back--the lost Eurydice of the world--into an utter blackness. For, in a minute, you will be no more than part of my past. Well then: good-night. VIII You will have got the telegram I sent you long before you got the parcel of letters: you will have got the note I wrote you by the same post as the letters themselves. If I have taken these three days to myself before again writing to you it has been because I have needed to recover my power of thinking. Now, in a way, I have recovered it--and it is only fair to say that I have devoted all my thoughts to how the new situation affects you--and you in your relations to me. It places me in your hands--let that be written first and foremost. You have to decree my life or my death. For I take it that now we can never get back again into our old position: I have spoken, you have heard me speak. The singular unity, the silence of our old life is done with for good. There is perhaps no reason why this should not be so: silence is no necessary part of our relationship. But it has seemed to make a rather exquisite bond between us. It must, if I am to continue to live--it must be replaced by some other bond. In our silence we have seemed to speak in all sorts of strange ways: we have perhaps read each other’s thoughts. I have seen words form themselves upon your lips. But now you must--there is no way out of it--you _must_ write to me. You must write to me fully: all your thoughts. You must, as I have done, find the means of speech--or I can no longer live.... I am reprieved!