... Briefly, then, it was this letter--a business letter--that set me thinking: that made that hill rise before me. Yes, I stood upon it and there before me lay Rome--beneath a haze, in the immense sea of plains. I have often thought of going to Rome--of going with you, in a leisurely autumn of your life and mine. Now--since I have received that letter--I know that I shall never see any other Rome than that from an imagined hilltop. And when, in the wonderful light and shadelessness of that noon, last evening, you came from a grove of silver poplars, I looked at you--_my_ you--for a very long while. You had, I think, a parasol behind your head, you moved slowly, you looked up at the capitals of those seven pillars.... And I thought that I should never--since you will not return before the end of April--never see you again. I shall never see again the you that every other man sees.... You understand everything so well that already you must understand the nature of my disclosure. It is, of course, no disclosure to tell you that I love you. A very great reverence is due to youth--and a very great latitude is due to the dead. For I am dead: I have only lived through you for how many years now! And I shall never speak with you again. Some sort of burial will have been given to me before the end of April. I am a spirit. I have ended my relations with the world. I have balanced all my books, my will is made. Only I have nothing to leave--save to you, to whom I leave all that is now mine in the world--my memory. It is very curious--the world now. I walked slowly down here from Gordon Square. I walked slowly--for all my work is done. On the way I met Graydon Bankes, the K. C. It would have astonished him if he could have known how unreal he looked to me. He is six feet high, and upon his left cheek there is a brown mole. I found it difficult to imagine why he existed. And all sorts of mists hurried past him. It was just outside the Natural History Museum. He said that his Seaford Railway Bill would come before Committee in June. And I wondered: what is June?... I laughed and thought: why June will never come! June will never come. Imagine that for a moment. We have discussed the ethics of suicide. You see why June will never come! You remember that ring I always wear? The one with a bulging, greenish stone. Once or twice you have asked me what stone it was. You thought, I know, that it was in bad taste and I told you I wore it for the sake of associations. I know you thought--but no: there has never been any woman but you.