“Even in your arms you tell me that there is to be no fulfilment.  I have acquiesced, wondering, bewildered, confused.  But, dear, you can never tell me so again—­if we live—­if I live to look into your eyes again—­never, never.  For I shall not believe it, nor shall I let you believe it, if only we can win through this deathly battle nightmare which is rising between us—­if ever we can find each other again, touch each other through this red, unreal glare of war.

“Oh, Philip—­Philip—­only to have your arms around me!  Only to touch you!  You shall not tell me then that our destinies do not mingle.  They shall mingle like two wines; they shall become utterly confused in one another; I was meant for that; I will not die, isolated by you, unknown to you, not belonging to you!  I will not die alone this way in the world, with no deeper memory to take into the unknown than that you said you loved me.

“God alone knows what change misery and sorrow and love and death have accomplished in me; never have I stood so alone upon this earth; never have I cared so for life, never have I so desired to be a deathless part of yours.

“If you love me you will make me part of yours—­somehow, some way.  And, Philip, if there is no way, yet there is always one way if we both live.  And I shall not complain—­only, I cannot die—­let life go out—­so that you could ever forget that my life had been part of yours.

“Is it dreadful of me to think this?  But the mighty domination of Death has dwarfed everything around me, dear; shrivelled the little man-made formulas and laws; the living mind and body seem more vital than the by-laws made to govern them. . . .  God knows what I’m writing, but you have gone into battle leaving life unfulfilled for us both, and I assented—­and my heart and soul are crying out to you, unreconciled—­crying out my need of you across the smoke. . . .

“There is a battery at Cock-pit Point, firing, and the smoke of the guns drifts across the low-hanging sun.  It must be only a salute, for our fleet of transports moves on, torrents of black smoke pouring out of every tall funnel, paddle-wheels churning steadily.

“When the fleet passed Mount Vernon the bells tolled aboard every boat; and we could see the green trees and a glimmer of white on shore, and the flag flying.

“What sadness!  A people divided who both honour the sacredness of this spot made holy by a just man’s grave—­gathering to meet in battle—­brother against brother.

“But Fate shall not longer array you and me against each other!  I will not have it so!  Neither my heart nor my soul could endure the cruelty of it, nor my reason its wickedness and insanity.  From the first instant I met your eyes, Philip, somehow, within me, I knew I belonged to you.  I do more hopelessly to-day than ever—­and with each day, each hour, more and more until I die.  You will not let me go to my end unclaimed, will you?—­a poor ghost all alone, lost in the darkness somewhere among the stars—­lacking that tie between you and it which even death does not know how to sever!