Amherst by William Nicholson

broke my heart to go through the day yesterday with only that passing sight of you.
    She wrote to him:
I have been all alone since supper—but not in the least lonely. I thought it possible that you might look in for a moment—at least I knew you would if you could. But I am unaccountably tired. So I am going to sleep now, with the last word you said to me this morning in my heart. I love you more tonight than I have ever done before. It grows and grows into a wonderfully rare and beautiful something, every day richer and stronger and more all-pervading.
    He to her:
I do believe you, my darling, and believe you love me as I love you. It was no fault of yours or mine that I could not take this in at first. My experience of life was too firm and encrusted to permit it. It contradicts everything, revolutionizes everything, overturns everything with me—astonishes and overwhelms me as much as overjoys and intoxicates me. I love you, I admire you, I idolize you. I am exalted by your love for me. I am strong as not for a long time before—elastic, well. I walk the street airily and with high pride, for I am loved—loved as I love, loved where I love.
    She to him:
It seems as if I cannot possibly bear it until you come. You have waked into an overbounding life things which will not let me rest away from you. It is wicked, as I said, said to you by word of mouth, how far away such bliss looks! To speak face to face with you at this moment. Heaven could hardly offer more.
    And what of Sue?
    Austin had no qualms on the matter. He had done his duty by his wife, given her a status she had never had before, and a home, and a family. He supported her in comfort. As the world went, he had fulfilled his side of the bargain. But Sue had never given him the deep love he craved. She had never awoken in him the power to love that now so electrified him. Therefore, he reasoned, his name and his worldly goods were owed to his wife; but his heart was his own, to give where it was wanted.
    Mabel, however, did have qualms. She tackled Austin as he was escorting her back to Mrs. Robison’s boardinghouse on Pleasant Street.
    “I love Sue so much,” she said. “She’s so lively and intelligent. She’s the only fellow spirit I’ve met among all the ladies of Amherst. And yet I see how she is with you. She seems not to mind if you come and go. Sometimes she almost laughs at you. It’s very strange.”
    “Strange, if you like,” said Austin. “Common enough, I think. How many married folk live as strangers in the same house?”
    “I mean strange that she should not love you. No, that’s not kind. Who am I to say what goes on in her heart? It must be that she loves you.”
    “Why must it be?”
    “Because you’re the most lovable of men!”
    He took her hand briefly, and then let it go. It was dark, but who knew who might be passing, and might see? Their soft-spoken words, at least, were for themselves alone.
    “My wife,” he said, “does not care for me to touch her.”
    “Not touch her!”
    “All her life, I believe, she’s had a great terror of childbirth. Certainly it took much persuading to venture down that path. When she was expecting Ned, she took certain measures—let’s say, she wanted her condition to be over. She was not successful.”
    “This is terrible,” murmured Mabel.
    “It’s many, many years since Sue and I have been man and wife in the fullest sense.”
    Mabel was shocked.
    “You poor, poor man. How have you borne it? I can’t bear to think how you have struggled.”
    Austin was moved by Mabel’s sympathy.
    “Do you truly understand? I thought this was something that women didn’t feel as we men do.”
    “Oh, yes! I understand. I feel for you. How else do we express love except through our physical senses? I see you, I hear you, I touch you. The more we love, the closer we come to each other, until one day there’s no distance between us at all, and we’re one.”
    “Oh, my darling. My