Sisters’ Quarters, University House
Birmingham
June 18th 1915
Darling
Your letter came tonight. I feel as though you are really going tonight or rather in the small hours of the morning.
It is best that we should not meet, although I have felt tempted to ask for my day off and see if I could not meet you at Camberley.
But it would have unnerved me and I should not have been fit to come back and nurse the soldiers, straight away as I should have been bound to do – and seeing me wretched would have made going more difficult for you.
In your going I feel I am making the biggest sacrifice I can make. Mrs Gaukroger said to me that she considered it harder for engaged couples to part than for husband and wife, for they have not had the consolation of having tasted happiness in its highest and best sense, and have to run the risk of never knowing it.
But all the same, dear Heart, I willingly send you, glad and proud to be one of those who are given the privilege of making a sacrifice for her country. There is no greater sacrifice than this “that a man lay down his life for his friends”. You are willing to do this if need be and I feel that your life is more to me than my own. God in His Infinite Mercy will watch over you and I know that your life has been such that you are not afraid to die if He wills that you should die defending His Cause, the cause of Justice, Humanity, Christianity. When one thinks of it, a nobler death could not be conceived of.
But I feel you will come back to me, and I must strive so to live that I shall be worthy of the reward that will be mine.
I am glad you like the photos. I was showing them to Sister Wanchope and one of the soldiers saw them and I have been pestered ever since to give them as souvenirs! But needless to say the request falls on deaf ears.
Goodbye till we meet again. My love will go with you wherever you go – permeating your life and sometimes you will call me to you and I shall be with you, close, close in your arms.
God bless you, dear Heart.
Ever your devoted
Mela
