August First | Page 5

and was thankful for the darkness; what a fool a fellow felt, giving advice about a love-affair!
"I have to. You see--he's pathetic. He'd go back into the depths if I let go, and--and I'm fond of him, in a way."
"Oh!"--the masculine mind was bewildered. "I understood that you--disliked him."
"Why, I do. But I'm just fond of him." Then she laughed again. "Any woman would know how I mean it. I mean--I am fond of him--I'd do anything for him. But I don't believe in him, and the thought of--of marrying him makes me desperate."
"Then you should not."
"I have to, if I live. So I'm going to kill myself to-night. You have nothing to say against it. You've said nothing--that counts. If you said I'd certainly go to hell, I might not--but you don't say that. I think you can't say it." She stood up. "Thank you for listening patiently. At least you have helped me to come to my decision. I'm going to. To-night."
This was too awful. He had helped her to decide to kill herself. He could not let her go that way. He stood before her and talked with all his might. "You cannot do that. You must not. You are overstrained and excited, and it is no time to do an irrevocable thing. You must wait till you see things calmly, at least. Taking your own life is not a thing to decide on as you might decide on going to a ball. How do you know that you will not be bitterly sorry to-morrow if you do that to-night? It's throwing away the one chance a person has to make the world better and happier. That's what you're here for--not to enjoy yourself."
She put a quiet sentence, in that oddly buoyant voice, into the stream of his words. "Still, you don't say I'd go to hell forever," she commented.
"Is that your only thought?" he demanded indignantly. "Can't you think of what's brave and worth while--of what's decent for a big thing like a soul? A soul that's going on living to eternity--do you want to blacken that at the start? Can't you forget your little moods and your despair of the moment?"
"No, I can't." The roses bobbed as she shook her head. The man, in his heart, knew how it was, and did not wonder. But he must somehow stop this determination which he had--she said--helped to form. A thought came to him; he hesitated a moment, and then broke out impetuously: "Let me do this--let me write to you; I'm not saying things straight. It's hard. I think I could write more clearly. And it's unfair not to give me a hearing. Will you promise only this, not to do it till you've read my letter?"
Slowly the youth, the indomitable brightness in the girl forged to the front. She looked at him with the dawn of a smile in her eyes, and he saw all at once, with a passing vision, that her eyes were very blue and that her hair was bright and light--a face vivid and responsive.
"Why, yes. There's no particular reason for to-night. I can wait. But I'm going home to-morrow, to my uncle's place at Forest Gate. I'll never be here again. The people I'm with are going away to live next month. I'll never see you again. You don't know my name." She considered a moment. "I'd rather not have you know it. You may write to--" She laughed. "I said I was just a date--you may write to August First, Forest Gate, Illinois. Say care of, care of--" Again she laughed. "Oh, well, care of Robert Halarkenden. That will reach me."
Quite gravely the man wrote down the fantastic address. "Thank you. I will write at once. You promised?"
"Yes." She put out her hand. "You've been very good to me. I shall never see you again. Good-by."
"Good-by," he said, and the room was suddenly so still, so empty, so dark that it oppressed him.
WARCHESTER, St. Andrew's Parish House, August 5th.
This is to redeem my promise. When we talked that afternoon, it seemed to me that I should be able to write the words I could not say. Every day since then I have said "Tomorrow I shall be able to tell her clearly." The clearness has not come--that's why I have put it off. It hasn't yet come. Sometimes--twice, I think--I have seen it all plainly. Just for a second--in a sort of flash. And then it dropped back into this confusion.
I won't insult you by attempting to discount your difficulties. You have worked out for yourself a calculation made, at one time or another, by many more people than you would imagine. And your answer is wrong. I know that. You know it too. When you say that you