" I have not been giving any particular attention to
your friend Mr Bevan," he continued, "because my
thoughts and anxieties have been directed elsewhera I
have been pressing on towards my goal, and my goal
has been you. I had not meant to speak to you
until the time had come when I could say to you:
*I have picked up the threads of my life, I have found
my way back to the scene of action, I have finished my
book and launched it out in the world, and at last I
feel that I may dare open my heart and show how you
are enshrined in it.' But now I can only say : ' I am
picking up the threads of my life, I am finding my way
back to the scene of action, only I have not reached as
far as I would fain have gone, before pleading for myself
and asking for your love.' But you know. You have
seen and felt how you have changed the world for me.
You have lifted me up and urged me on; you have
inspired and fired me ; from the moment I saw you, I
passed, as it were, into a promised land. To be so lonely
as I was when you first came to me — and then suddenly
to be flooded with hope and love — ah, I have not been
thinking of Theodore Bevan — I've been thinking of myself
and you — ^you and myself, you and me together — you, the
very keynote of my life, the very kernel of my heart."



214 THE FOWLKR.
