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 living on the defensive for years. I know the books you read, and what you see in the streets you walk in of that town with the terrible name. You live in a dark house looking over a highway. Very often you stand in the light of the windows, leaning your head against the frame, and trees with dull leaves send the sunshine and shadow shivering over your face. Footsteps startle you, you start back into the crowded room. The morning you get this letter, go out bare-headed into your garden and let the wind blow the sunshine through your hair. I shall be thinking of you then.

"Your husband and your children have intruded on you. Even your children hurt you with their little soft hands, and yet you are as you always were, untouched and lonely. You came slowly out of yourself at that poetry-reading, like a nymph coming out of a wood. You came towards me like a white thing between trees, and I snatched at you as you turned to go back"

Her cheeks burnt.

"My goodness," she cried, biting her thumbnail. "Fancy anybody being able to