THE GIRL IN HIS HOUSE
there was no sense to the written words under his gaze. He had to summon all his forces to throw off the appalling numbness before the words adjusted themselves into meaning forms.
Progreso, Yucatan, March, 1909.
My Darling,—Your last letter was like a hand squeezing my heart. So you must know the truth! I have always known that this hour must come. A thousand times I have started toward you, only to be dragged back by cowardly—yes, your father, for all his preaching, is a coward!—fear. When I received that photograph of you, I knew that it would be long years before I would have the courage to look upon you. The dread fear that has always been in my heart was realized. You were the reincarnation of your mother. If I looked upon your living face it would kill me. Your mother is ever with me. I am a strange man, a pariah, a wanderer on the face of the earth, homeless and unhappy. It has come to the pass where I dare not look into fires. I am always seeing you and your mother. Your mother died when you were born. But her soul always walks beside me. Am I cruel and selfish? God alone knows. I repeat, a thousand times the father-love has burned furiously in my heart, and I have hastened toward you, only to turn back. I wonder if in all this world there is another man so utterly miserable and accursed? But God always145
