Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/199

 I am going to be quite honest, dear, what I wanted, too, must not be. Don't think, please, that this decision has cost me no unhappiness, for it has. I love you. I want to tell you that, I want you to believe it. The only consolation I find is in the knowledge that what I feel for you is love and not what I feared. Perhaps if it were not love I wouldn't have the strength to say no to you. But it is love. I tell you so gladly, and without shame. You've made me love you so much as to make what you proposed impossible. If I cared less, I might consent. As it is, I dare not risk it. I could never share you with another. I should hate the secrecy, the continual pretense. I should want to shout it from the house tops, dear, and not hide it. Can you understand what I mean? I fear I don't make it very plain, but you must forgive me, for my mind is tired and my heart is very wretched. I don't want this to make you very unhappy, dear, and yet I am selfish enough to hope that you aren't reading it with a sense of relief. I want so much to believe that what you have offered is just as much love as mine is. I am going away. I shall be gone when you read this. Not so much because I don't trust you as because I am just learning myself and don't yet know my own strength. Don't try to find me, dear. I want this to be good-by. And don't try to learn who I am. Just let me be Peggy-in-the-Rain, the girl you cared for for a while and who cared for you. Thank you for your kindness to me, thank you for making me love you, for I think I am happier now in my unhappiness than I was before