JOAN,

I knew that you would never come to me, I think I have known it in my

heart for a long time. But I must have been a proud and stubborn woman,

for I would not admit my failure until the very last. I had a hundred

things to keep hope alive in me; your splendid brain, your longing to

free yourself from Seabourne and what it stands for, the strength of all

the youth in you, and then the love I thought you had for me. Yes, I

counted a great deal on that, perhaps because I judged it by my love for

you. I was wrong, you see, your love did not hold, it was not strong

enough to give you your liberty; or was it that you were too strong to

take it? I don't know.

Joan, I shall never come back, I cannot come back. I must go away from

you, tear you out of me, forget you. You have had too much of me

already. Oh! far too much! But now I have taken it back, all, all; for I

will not go into my new life incomplete.

I wonder if you have ever realized what my life at Seabourne has been?

So unendurable at times that but for you I think I should have ended it.

The long, long days with their dreadful monotony, three hundred and

sixty-five of them in every year; and then the long, long years!

I used to go home from Leaside in the evening, and sit in the study with

Ralph and Uncle John's portrait, and feel as if tight fingers were

squeezing my throat; as if I were being suffocated under the awful plush

folds of the curtains. I used to have the horrible idea that Seabourne

had somehow become a living, embodied entity, of which Ralph and Old

Uncle John and the plush curtains and the smell of mildew that always

hung about Ralph's books, all formed a terrifying part. Then I used to

look at myself in the glass when I got up every morning, and count the

lines on my face one by one, and realize that my youth was slipping past

me; with every one of those three hundred and sixty-five days a little

less of it remained, a little more went into the toothless jaws of

Seabourne.

Joan, I too have had my ambition, I too once meant to make good. When I

first came to take care of Ralph's house, I never intended to stay for

more than a year at most. I meant to go to London and be a journalist if

they'd have me; in any case I meant to work, out in the real world, the

world that has passed Seabourne by, long ago.

Then I saw you, an overgrown colt of a child, all legs and arms. I began

to teach you, and gradually, very gradually, you became Seabourne's

ally. You never knew it, but at moments I did; you were helping the

place to hold me. My interest in you, in your personality, your unusual

ability; the joy it was to teach you, and later the deep love I felt for

you, all chained me to Leaside. My very desire to uproot you and drag

you away was only another snare that held me to the life I detested. Do

you remember how I tried to break free, that time, and failed? It was

you who pulled me back, through my love for you. Yes, even my love for

you was used by Seabourne to secure its victim.

I grew older year by year, and saw my chances slipping from me; and I

often felt older than I was, life at Seabourne made me feel old. I

realized that I was only half a being, that there were experiences I had

never had, fulfilments I had never known, joys and sorrows which many a

poor devil of a charwoman could have taught me about. I felt stunted and

coerced, checked at the very roots of me, hungry for my birthright.

But as time went on I managed to dam up the torrent, till it flowed away

from its natural course; it flowed out to you, Joan. Then it was that my

desire to help forward a brilliant pupil, grew, little by little, into

an absorbing passion. I became a monoïdeist, with you as the idea. I

lived for you, for your work, your success; I lived in you, in your

present, in your future, which I told myself would be my future too. Oh!

my dear, how I built on you; and I thought I had dug the foundations so

deep that no waves or tempests could destroy them.

Then, five days ago, the house fell down; it crashed about my ears, it

stunned me. All I knew then was that I must escape from the ruin or let

myself be crushed to death; all I know now is that I must never see that

ruin again.

Joan, I will not even go near enough to our disaster to ask you what you

are going to do. Why should I ask? I already know the answer. You must

forget me, as I must forget you. I don't understand the way of things,

they seem to me to be cruelly badly managed at the source; but perhaps

Someone or Something is wise, after all, as they would have us believe.

No, I don't mean that, I can't feel like that--resigned; not yet.

By the time this letter reaches you I shall be married to Lawrence

Benson. Do I love him? No, not at all; I like him and I suppose I

respect him, but he is the last person on earth that I could love. I

have told him all this and he still wants to marry me. We shall leave

very soon for South Africa, where his bank is opening new branches. Oh!

Joan, and you will be in Seabourne; the injustice of it! You see I am

hovering still in the vicinity of my ruin, but I shall get clear, never

doubt it.

Do not try to see me before I go, I have purposely given no address, and

Ralph has been asked not to give it either 3 and do not write to me. I

want to forget.