People said that he had inherited and cherished the old hatred of the Shirleys -- that he was very bitter against us . I believed it . He had the face of a good hater -- or lover -- a man who could play with no emotion but must take it in all earnestness and intensity . When it was quite dark the housekeeper brought in the lights and handed me a letter which , she said , a man had just brought up from the village post office . I looked at it curiously before I opened it , wondering from whom it was . It was postmarked from a city several miles away , and the firm , decided , rather peculiar handwriting was strange to me . I had no correspondents . After Father 's death I had received a few perfunctory notes of condolence from distant relatives and family friends . They had hurt me cruelly , for they seemed to exhale a subtle spirit of congratulation on my being released from a long and unpleasant martyrdom of attendance on an invalid , that quite overrode the decorous phrases of conventional sympathy in which they were expressed . I hated those letters for their implied injustice . I was not thankful for my `` release . '' I missed Father miserably and longed passionately for the very tasks and vigils that had evoked their pity . This letter did not seem like one of those . I opened it and took out some stiff , blackly written sheets . They were undated and , turning to the last , I saw that they were unsigned . With a not unpleasant tingling of interest I sat down by my desk to read . The letter began abruptly : You will not know by whom this is written . Do not seek to know -- now or ever . It is only from behind the veil of your ignorance of my identity that I can ever write to you fully and freely as I wish to write -- can say what I wish to say in words denied to a formal and conventional expression of sympathy . Dear lady , let me say to you thus what is in my heart .
I know what your sorrow is , and I think I know what your loneliness must be -- the sorrow of a broken tie , the loneliness XXXXX a life thrown emptily back on itself .
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