as it were, a great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze; then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes in the very flesh and bone of my right hand, when I strike on the piano some of Beethoven’s chords.  But I know that, except in the light of your presence, I have no beauty.  I had not so much to lose by illness as other women.  But, dear one, that little is gone.  I can read in the pitying looks of all my friends how altered I am.  Even if I did not see it with my own eyes, I should read it in theirs.  And I cannot—­oh, I cannot read it in yours!

“If I knew any spell which could make you forget all except some one rare moment in which you said in your heart, ’she never looked so lovely before!’ oh, how firmly I would bind you by it!  All the weary indifferent, or unhappy looks, love, I would blot out from your memory, and have the thought of me raise but one picture in your mind.  I would have it as if I had died, and left of my face no record on earth except one wonderful picture by some great master, who had caught the whole beauty of the one rarest moment of my life.  Darling, if you look back, you will find that moment; for it must have been in your arms; and let Love be the master who will paint the immortal picture!

“As for this thin, pale, listless body, which just now answers to the name of me, there is nothing in or about it which you know.  Presently it will be carried like a half-lifeless thing on board a ship; the winds will blow roughly on it and it will not care.  If God wills, darling, I will come back to you well and strong.  If I cannot come well and strong, I hope never to come at all.

“Don’t call me cruel.  You would feel the same.  I also should combat the resolve in you, as you do in me.  But in my heart I should understand.  I should sympathize, and I should yield.

“God bless you, darling.  I believe He will, for the infinite goodness of your life.  I thank Him daily that He has given it to me to bless you a little.  If I had seen you to say farewell, my beloved, I should not have kissed you many times, as has been our wont.  That is for hours of joy.  I should have kissed you three times—­only three times—­on your beautiful, strong, gentle lips, and each kiss would have been a separate sacrament, with a bond of its own.  I send them to you here, love, and this is what they mean!

  “Three Kisses of Farewell.

  “Three, only three my darling,
    Separate, solemn, slow;
  Not like the swift and joyous ones
    We used to know
  When we kissed because we loved each other
    Simply to taste love’s sweet,
  And lavished our kisses as the summer
    Lavishes heat,—­
  But as they kiss whose hearts are wrung,
    When hope and fear are spent,
  And nothing is left to give, except
    A sacrament!