A Gentleman's Correspondence:

To my darling love,
   
       I have valued myself as nothing and thrown my affection around where neither they nor I deserved and you have shied away because of it. But before I go on remember this: I do not write this letter with the object of your forgiveness in mind. Pray, don't melt and fall at my feet after these words, but only listen awhile and hear my struggle.
      I have felt, before, of my own insignificance, but never have I been less than as I now am without you. Others have compared their love to flying, but mine is a weight that grips me to the earth so much that a single step is a labor on my heart. Never are you gone from my mind, and while my thoughts are filled with you, I know I am ever absent from yours.
      My heart is gone to you, love, and I know I must learn to be content to live without it. But, oh, my plight is not a hopeless one and I live with the ever present longing for you to see me as I am and share my heart back with me, not for your pity for me at these words, but for your own heart's relief.

           Ever waiting,
      Your adoring servant.


Thomas leaned back, took one more surveying glance at the letter, and threw it in the fireplace.