Yes, dear Sheila, I
love you, and I would tear out the heart of the world for you. I
bathe my whole being in your beauty and your charm. I hunger for
you--to stand beside you, to listen to your voice, to dip my prison
fingers into the pure cauldron of your soul and feel my own soul
expand. I wonder why it is that to-day I feel more than I ever felt
before the rare splendour of your person.
I have always admired you and loved you, always heard you calling
me, as if from some sacred corner of a perfect world. Is it that
yesterday's dissipation--yes, I was drunk yesternight, drunk in a
new way. I was drunk with the thought of you, the longing for you.
I picked a big handful of roses, and in my mind gave them into your
hands. And I thought you smiled and said:
"Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter Paradise." So I
followed you to your home there in the Virginian country. It was a
dream, all except the roses, and those I laid in front of the box
where I keep your letters and a sketch I made of you when we were
young and glad--when I was young and glad.
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