Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/189

 you — you stand for me as a symbol of nobility, a fine and original nature who never worried about bourgeois laws and prejudices, a refined little woman who never grew common by breaking the rules of good society, but who on the contrary gained thereby and developed into a nobler personality.

'No, Julie, it cannot possibly be you who sent me that housemaid's letter which took your name in vain.

'Where could you, pure, proud, dear girl, have learned those hectic, excited words.

'I have—I know it only too well—treated you cruelly. But what you are now doing for yourself is a thousandfold more cruel.

'My own darling, my soul's proud and sweet memory, I sorrow over your letter as over a vandalism. More than that, I am ashamed on your account, and to me it seems the saddest thing I have ever experienced.'

I have written to him for the last time:—

'I thank you for your letter. It hurt so much that I could hardly bear it. I needed the brutal truth and it has done its work. Don't think that I look upon it as a humiliation that I was ready to lie in the dust at your feet. But it was unworthy of me to force myself on you when I ought to have understood you do not want me back at any price.

'I ask your forgiveness with all my heart. I knew