'GOD'S PEACE' 347
Hitherto Rough-Hill has been my home, but now without you I should be homeless even there. The life and the world outside frightened me be- fore, but with you I know no fear. If you tell me that I ought to stay here for father's sake, then I must tell you that it is not father who has kept me here. Sometimes I even think that he himself would like to leave, and perhaps it would be better for him. After all he is old, and of late his mind has often been worried by curious thoughts he gets here in the stillness. It seems he is afraid of the mill ; he fancies it calls him, that it reproaches him for having stopped it. No, indeed, I am doing father no wrong in leaving ; but if you prefer me to stay here and wait for you, that also would be right. Perhaps you would like to be alone for some time to try your own heart and see whether it was the loneliness only that made you need me. Anything you decide I will do ; I know it would be for the best, for I love you.'
I allowed Greta to speak out. Was it cruel and hard of me, dear love ? Was it selfish of me that my soul could not bear to lose one of the blessed words which fell like blood from your anxious heart ? I trust you will forgive me on account of the greater joy my answer gave you; my answer, which you had in black and white, in the letter to the publisher.
