It is harder than I dreamed to live without you, in the now uncertain hope of a meeting after this world. Yet when you ask me to meet you again in the fir-wood for a long and sweet discourse such as we were wont to have, I cannot but say nay; for my brother’s eyes have oft been set upon me lately, and he has questioned me in strange fashion concerning my abstraction and frequent absences. Dearest, I lied to him, and said, with all the blood of my body rushing to my heart, that I was much engaged in meditation and writing. I dare not meet you to-night, but if you rise betimes in the morning I will be in the Long Spinney. Till sunbreak then, yours, ALTHEA. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. _16th November 1710._ Let it be now, my lover, let us not wait until age or disease brings us together. To die in the full expectation of joy, without one thought of the gloomy past, with its lurid clouds and too-scorching light--to die in the strongest appreciation, uncaring for men’s calumny--is my hope and heart’s desire. And even if there be no future but eternal sleep, ’tis eternal sleep at thy side. What more can a tired, loving woman wish for than rest by the man she adores? But there is another country, of that I am assured. So we will brave it together, seize Death at the height of Life, and enter, with unwarped souls, a new existence. I have been to gaze upon our old trysting places for the last time. Shall we be permitted to visit them when, existing for each other, we pass hand in hand through the air? At midnight Althea Swarthmoor will be counted amongst the Dead. She calls thee--she bids thee welcome. * * * * * Tradition is silent as to the precise manner of the lady’s end. Suffice it to say that she died violently at the appointed time. Dr. Marston survived her by forty years; becoming in turn Dean of Barnchester and Bishop of Norbarry. Besides twelve volumes of sermons, he wrote a ‘Dissertation on the Human Feelings,’ which is still notorious for its triteness. THE RETURN