Pierce asked me to marry him today. No, that’s not strictly correct. He said I should marry him, as if a man’s bald order is likely to move a woman to accept his proposal. But that’s not why I turned him down. When Lewis proposed, I took no thought for the problems that might rear up to meet us. With Pierce, they are all I can see.

Yet the real objection is not one I voiced to him. You see, with my first love, my heart was boundless. I gave freely out of a well which I thought would never run dry.

Now I’m a desert. It’s not that I don’t have feelings for Pierce. I assuredly do. But my heart is so shriveled, so desiccated, I can’t offer it to him.

He deserves so much more.

~from the secret journal of Lady Nora Claremont