Her handsome , sullen face flushed crimson under the sting of his utter disregard , and her black eyes followed him up the stairs with a look that was not good to see . `` Sis , '' whispered Link piercingly , `` come out here ! I 've got a joke to tell you , something about the master and his girl . You ai n't to let on to him you know , though . I found it out last night when he was off to the shore . That old key of Uncle Jim 's was just the thing . He 's a softy , and no mistake . '' * * * * * Upstairs in his little room , the schoolmaster was writing his letter . The room was as bare and graceless as all the other rooms of the farmhouse where he had boarded during his term of teaching ; but it looked out on the sea , and was hung with such priceless tapestry of his iris dreams and visions that it was to him an apartment in a royal palace . From it he gazed afar on bays that were like great cups of sapphire brimming over with ruby wine for gods to drain , on headlands that were like amethyst , on wide sweeps of sea that were blue and far and mysterious ; and ever the moan and call of the ocean 's heart came up to his heart as of one great , hopeless love and longing crying out to another love and longing , as great and hopeless . And here , in the rose-radiance of the sunset , with the sea-music in the dim air , he wrote his letter to her . My Lady : How beautiful it is to think that there is nothing to prevent my loving you ! There is much -- everything -- to prevent me from telling you that I love you . But nothing has any right to come between my heart and its own ; it is permitted to love you forever and ever and serve and reverence you in secret and silence . For so much , dear , I thank life , even though the price of the permission must always be the secret and the silence . I have just come from you , my lady . Your voice is still in my ears ; your eyes are still looking into mine , gravely yet half smilingly , sweetly yet half provokingly . Oh , how dear and human and girlish and queenly you are -- half saint and half very womanly woman ! And how I love you with all there is of me to love -- heart and soul and brain , every fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the wonder and marvel and miracle of it ! You do not know it , my sweet , and you must never know it .
You would not even wish XXXXX know it , for I am nothing to you but one of many friends , coming into your life briefly and passing out of it , of no more account to you than a sunshiny hour , a bird 's song , a bursting bud in your garden .
For From about in into of on though to under