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 Only his mother could see now that he was lovely. She wrote him a longer letter when she was up and about again.

On the day the child was buried she wrote telling Gram in a few words of her loss, informing him of her intention to go south the same evening, and asking him not to expect to hear from her until she was more like herself again. "Do not worry about me," she wrote. "I am fairly composed now, but hopelessly miserable, of course."

Her letter crossed one from Gert, who wrote:

",—Thank you for your last letter. I see that you reproach yourself because of your relations to me; my dear little girl, I have nothing to reproach you for, so you must not do it yourself. You have never been anything but kind and sweet and loving to your friend, and I shall never forget your tenderness and affection during the short time you loved me—your charming youth, your gentle devotion in the days of our short happiness.

"We ought to have known, both of us, that it would be short. I certainly ought to have understood, and if you had reflected you might have known too, but do two people, who are attracted by one another, ever reflect? Do you think I reproach you because one day you ceased to love me and caused me the greatest suffering in my far from happy life—a twofold suffering when I learnt simultaneously that our relations would have consequences which you would have to bear all through life?

"From your letter I see too that those consequences, which have probably been a much greater source of despair to me than to you, in spite of all you may have experienced of worry and bodily suffering, have brought a deeper joy and happiness than anything else in all your life—that the joy of being a mother gives you peace, satisfaction, and courage to live, and that with your child in your arms you think you will have