A Duet (with an occasional chorus) | Page 5

come back and back all day, and leave me in the blackest fit of
despondency. I confessed to you that I had dark humours, but never one
so hopeless as this. I do not wish my worst enemy to be as unhappy as I
have been to-day.
Write to me, my own darling Maude, and tell me all you think, your
very inmost soul, in this matter. Am I right? Have I asked too much of
you? Does the change frighten you? You will have this in the morning,
and I should have my answer by the evening post. I shall meet the
postman. How hard I shall try not to snatch the letter from him, or to
give myself away. Wilson has been in worrying me with foolish talk,
while my thoughts were all of our affairs. He worked me up into a

perfectly homicidal frame of mind, but I hope that I kept on smiling
and was not discourteous to him. I wonder which is right, to be polite
but hypocritical, or to be inhospitable but honest.
Good-bye, my own dearest sweetheart--all the dearer when I feel that I
may lose you.--Ever your devoted
FRANK.
St. Albans, June 8th.
Frank, tell me for Heaven's sake what your letter means! You use
words of love, and yet you talk of parting. You speak as if our love
were a thing which we might change or suppress. O Frank, you cannot
take my love away from me. You don't know what you are to me, my
heart, my life, my all. I would give my life for you willingly,
gladly--every beat of my heart is for you. You don't know what you
have become to me. My every thought is yours, and has been ever since
that night at the Arlingtons'. My love is so deep and strong, it rules my
whole life, my every action from morning to night. It is the very breath
and heart of my life--unchangeable. I could not alter my love any more
than I could stop my heart from beating. How could you, could you
suggest such a thing! I know that you really love me just as much as I
love you, or I should not open my heart like this. I should be too proud
to give myself away. But I feel that pride is out of place when any
mistake or misunderstanding may mean lifelong misery to both of us. I
would only say good-bye if I thought your love had changed or grown
less. But I know that it has not. O my darling, if you only knew what
terrible agony the very thought of parting is, you would never have let
such an idea even for an instant, on any pretext, enter your mind. The
very possibility is too awful to think of. When I read your letter just
now up in my room, I nearly fainted. I can't write. O Frank, don't take
my love away from me. I can't bear it. Oh no, it is my everything. If I
could only see you now, I know that you would kiss these heart-
burning tears away. I feel so lonely and tired. I cannot follow all your
letter. I only know that you talked of parting, and that I am weary and
miserable.
MAUDE.
(COPY OF TELEGRAM) From Frank Crosse, to Miss Maude Selby,
The Laurels, St. Albans Coming up eight-fifteen, arrive midnight.
June 10th.

How good of you, dear old boy, to come racing across two counties at a
minute's notice, simply in order to console me and clear away my
misunderstandings. Of course it was most ridiculous of me to take your
letter so much to heart, but when I read any suggestion about our
parting, it upset me so dreadfully, that I was really incapable of
reasoning about anything else. Just that one word PART seemed to be
written in letters of fire right across the page, to the exclusion of
everything else. So then I wrote an absurd letter to my boy, and the
dear came scampering right across the South of England, and arrived at
midnight in the most demoralised state. It was just sweet of you to
come, dear, and I shall never forget it.
I am so sorry that I have been so foolish, but you must confess, sir, that
you have been just a little bit foolish also. The idea of supposing that
when I love a man my love can be affected by the size of his house or
the amount of his income. It makes me smile to think of it. Do you
suppose a woman's happiness is affected by whether she has a
breakfast-room, or a billiard-board, or a collie dog, or any of the other
luxuries which you