It was too cruel. It was incredible. It must be some hideous hallucination--some nightmare, that I should sooner or later wake up from. I could not believe that it was in the possible order of nature for a man and a woman to have loved each other as you and I had loved each other, and yet to have become so utterly lost to each other as it now seemed that we were; for two human lives to have been so perfectly fused together, blended together like two colors upon my palette, and yet afterward to have become so completely rent asunder. I could not believe it possible for my soul to yearn toward you and thirst for you constantly, as it did, and yet be debarred forever from any sort of communion with you. It seemed as though somehow, sometime, somewhere, we _must_ come together--you and I once more!--and all our sorrow be swept away by the great joy of our reunion. Oh, Christine, if it might be so! If only it might be so! At these moments my imagination would break the bonds of reason and fly off in daydreams, long, delicious flights of fancy, visiting wondrous air castles where you and I dwelt together--only shortly to drop back upon the awful reality. The reality: I married, and all your love for me, your priceless love for me, by my fault, turned to horror and hatred. And yet, in spite of the reality, in the very teeth of it, I would think: 'Well, what if my wife should die?' As long as I am telling you the truth, I may as well tell you the whole truth, no matter how bad it may make you think I am. Yes, I would say: 'What if my wife should die?' And then I would repeat to myself what you had once said about that very same verse of Rossetti's poetry: 'I can't understand why it should be so absolutely hopeless. If they really were all alone together, and she saw how dreadfully he had suffered, I don't understand how she could help forgiving him and loving him again.' And then, for an instant my heart would bound with something like hope. But only for an instant. As soon as my reason could make itself heard, I would acknowledge that I had sinned too much ever to expect forgiveness from you. No, it would be past human nature.... At still other times my uppermost feeling would be simply an intense desire to see you--not for any special purpose, not with a view to speaking to you--simply a craving for the sight of your face. I felt that if I could only look upon you for an instant, catch one brief glimpse of you, I should have something to remember and cherish, something for my heart to feed upon, which was feeding upon itself. It would be an agony.