I give it up.
Such were my thoughts on the morning after my interview with Dale, when
I had read a long, long letter from Lola, which she had despatched from
Paris.
The letter lies before me now, many pages in a curious, half-formed
foreign hand. Many would think it an ill-written letter--for there are
faults of spelling and faults of grammar--but even now, as I look
on those faults, the tears come into my eyes. Oh, how exquisitely,
pathetically, monumentally, sublimely foolish! She had little or nothing
to do with it, poor dear; it was only the Arch-Jester again, leading her
blindly away, so as once more to leave me high and dry on the Hill of
Derision.
". . . My dear, you must forgive me! My heart is breaking, but I know
I'm doing right. There is nothing for it but to go out of your life for
ever. It terrifies me to think of it, but it's the only way. I know you
think you love me, dear; but you can't, you can't _really_ love a woman
so far beneath you, and I would sooner never see you again than marry
you and wake up one day and find that you hated and scorned me.
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