found Issam.

But I pretended not to know him, and I did not speak to him. The truth is that I hardly mix even with the girls in the students' residence, except a little. For I hate to form a new friendship, or a new love, after losing two friends whom I loved as I have loved no one else, and after my heart was struck down in a losing bargain of love.

And here I am now, these six months, living by myself among people, feeling out of harmony with them — feeling, indeed, a little afraid of them, I know not why.

There is one thing that consoles me in my loneliness: my feeling that he is always with me... always in my heart... always before my eyes. It is enough for me to see him every day... even if he does not sense my existence, my being with him in the same place is enough to stir in my soul each day a new hope. Perhaps one day he will sense my presence... perhaps his heart will beat, if only a little... if only as an echo of this fierce fullness whose force all but tears my heart apart!... Then all that I suffered in the past will seem light to me, and I shall forget my loneliness and my torment.

I live now on this hope, and even if it increases my heart's torment... by this hope alone will this heart live. But sometimes I come back to myself... and grasp the truth. I know quite well that it is impossible for this thing I hope for to happen. He has never spoken to me, and he knew me only a little... perhaps he has even forgotten my face... so how should his heart beat at the coming... how should his heart beat at the coming of one he never knew?

Yesterday I saw him, and our glances met... and at a moment when my heart was all but leaping from my breast, his

glance told that he was trying to remember... where had he seen this face! Yes, he has forgotten me entirely, and I no longer have a place in his memory. Then why do I not forget him? I do not know. I am bewildered now... shall I stay near him? Or return to America and try once more... if only a try... to forget him?

But shall I forget him, I wonder? Can I forget him as I am now — having shut the world out from me? No. I shall never be able to forget him while I am in this loneliness. For my loneliness only increases my love for him. I shall not forget him unless I find a

tender heart to help me forget. And where shall I find a tender heart to make me forget the unkindness of his?

Shall I find that heart, I wonder? I myself do not believe it... I know quite well that deprivation has been written upon me, and that nothing is left in my life to nourish it but memory. The memory of days that passed as the finest days of a lifetime can pass... the memory of the first days of my knowing him... when my heart brimmed with ardor and hope... the memory of our innocent friendship at school... when we were... three.