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Page 4
Glenn had put his lips to her ear: "It's like the voice in my soul!" Never
would she forget the shock of that. And how she had stood spellbound,
enveloped in the mighty volume of sound no longer discordant, but full of
great, pregnant melody, until the white ball burst upon the tower of the
Times Building, showing the bright figures 1919.
The new year had not been many minutes old when Glenn Kilbourne had told
her he was going West to try to recover his health.
Carley roused out of her memories to take up the letter that had so
perplexed her. It bore the postmark, Flagstaff, Arizona. She reread it with
slow pondering thoughtfulness.
WEST FORK,
March 25.
DEAR CARLEY:
It does seem my neglect in writing you is unpardonable. I used to be a
pretty fair correspondent, but in that as in other things I have changed.
One reason I have not answered sooner is because your letter was so sweet
and loving that it made me feel an ungrateful and unappreciative wretch.
Another is that this life I now lead does not induce writing. I am outdoors
all day, and when I get back to this cabin at night I am too tired for
anything but bed.
Your imperious questions I must answer--and that must, of course, is a
third reason why I have delayed my reply. First, you ask, "Don't you love
me any more as you used to?" . . . Frankly, I do not. I am sure my old love
for you, before I went to France, was selfish, thoughtless, sentimental,
and boyish. I am a man now. And my love for you is different. Let me assure
you that it has been about all left to me of what is noble and beautiful.
Whatever the changes in me for the worse, my love for you, at least, has
grown better, finer, purer.
And now for your second question, "Are you coming home as soon as you are
well again?" . . . Carley, I am well. I have delayed telling you this
because I knew you would expect me to rush back East with the telling. But--
the fact is, Carley, I am not coming--just yet. I wish it were possible
for me to make you understand. For a long time I seem to have been frozen
within. You know when I came back from France I couldn't talk. It's almost
as bad as that now. Yet all that I was then seems to have changed again. It
is only fair to you to tell you that, as I feel now, I hate the city, I
hate people, and particularly I hate that dancing, drinking, lounging set
you chase with. I don't want to come East until I am over that, you know. . .
Suppose I never get over it? Well, Carley, you can free yourself from
me by one word that I could never utter. I could never break our
engagement. During the hell I went through in the war my attachment to you
saved me from moral ruin, if it did not from perfect honor and fidelity.
This is another thing I despair of making you understand. And in the chaos
I've wandered through since the war my love for you was my only anchor. You
never guessed, did you, that I lived on your letters until I got well. And
now the fact that I might get along without them is no discredit to their
charm or to you.
It is all so hard to put in words, Carley. To lie down with death and get
up with death was nothing. To face one's degradation was nothing. But to
come home an incomprehensibly changed man--and to see my old life as
strange as if it were the new life of another planet--to try to slip into
the old groove--well, no words of mine can tell you how utterly impossible
it was.
My old job was not open to me, even if I had been able to work. The
government that I fought for left me to starve, or to die of my maladies
like a dog, for all it cared.
I could not live on your money, Carley. My people are poor, as you know. So
there was nothing for me to do but to borrow a little money from my friends
and to come West. I'm glad I had the courage to come. What this West is
I'll never try to tell you, because, loving the luxury and excitement and
glitter of the city as you do, you'd think I was crazy.
Getting on here, in my condition, was as hard as trench life. But now,
Carley--something has come to me out of the West. That, too, I am unable to
put into words. Maybe I can give you an inkling of it. I'm strong enough to
chop wood all day. No man or woman passes my cabin in a month. But I am
never lonely. I love these vast red canyon walls towering above me. And the
silence is so sweet. Think of the hellish din that filled my ears. Even
now--sometimes, the brook here changes its babbling murmur to the roar of
war. I never understood anything of the meaning of nature until I lived
under these looming stone walls and whispering pines.
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