The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1909-08-18
T H E A PPE A L By Mas 2sl5 HsE9sg5 Ugasr
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ~

something more than cold formalities.
And then, again, on the theory that things are
never as anticipate them she would write
down what she thought the letter would say-the
cold formal things, in the hope that as she had
anticipated these-there might be something diff
ferent!
She could feel the sheet of paper inside and
perhaps faint tracing of words through the
envelope! There is nothing in the world so preg-
nant with possibilities sealed letter from one
we love and from whom have been separated.
All the tender hopeful differences she would
draw from the envelope itself, the address, the
stamp, the kind OF paper. If the writing seemed
hurried, it was because he had at last felt the
need of her and had sent a tender urgent mes
sage addressing it hurriedly that it might the
more quickly reach her. Or, if the writing was
careful and painstaking, it that he wanted to
be sure, very sure, that the loving message he
was sending would not go astray.
How foolish and pitiful it all was And then
at last the opening of the letter, looking away
while she unfolded it, perhaps holding it few
moments before she would turn her head and
then.-in one agonized glance to read the brief
formal lines.
The sleepless night that would follow, a night
spent in rereading his old letters letters full
and overlooking with love and tenderness Life
holds nothing more pteous than the reading
of old love letters when the writer has grown
cold They are like dead thngs-each tender
phrase the ghost of past love.
Her old letters to him-did he ever read them
now she wondered All the sweetness and beauty
and joy OF her youth had been in those letters
I T was a gray cheerless day in January-a year
since she left New York-that this letter came
to her.
why should go on like this? Why waste
our lives, in taking nothing because we cannot
have all want, all once had?
There is so much we can still have, so much
that we have in common We get so much
more out of life together than we can apart This
year has been blank and empty
Perhaps l expected too much of YOU and per-
haps. But we will not speak of that am
writing you to ask you to come back to me-
or let me come for you. If cannot give you
all that once did, can give you great deal
more than could give anyone else"
The letter lay in her lap, her eyes resting far
out over the roofs and trees to the misty line of
the horizon.
Just to be with him! To see him every day-to
live with hm-to be his wife! The warm blood
surged over her face and neck. Could she put
all this asde-risk losing it forever in the hope
that it might be more?
She could not-she could not Her lonely
tortured heart cried out passionately against it.
And yet she knew that she would Underneath
all her weakness there was something that rose
strong, compeng-something that forced her to
say, MOI"
Weeks passed. Months passed. And no an
ality-nothng. Just silence. Oh, the emptiness
and deafness of that silence! She had lost. She
had risked snpremey and lost
The winter yielded slowly to the soft per-
suaslons OF spring the spring of Paris. allurng.
sensuous, insistent Lovers wandered idly in the
little park opposite her hotel She watched them
with haunted eyes.
And for her-t was all over Each spring would
bring only gradual fading and whitening She
to know life and love in its fullness
To have never fulfilled the mission of her
hood, to wther like the shrveling of unrpened
Continued On page