This note, which he showed me after I had insisted point blank on seeing it, read:
Burkelove:
Have just received a wire, and must go East on next train. Tried to get you on the phone, but couldn’t. Will write you as soon as I know what my address will be. If anything. [These two words were erased and could be read only with great difficulty.] Love me until I’m back with you forever.
Nine days later he had received another letter from her, from Baltimore, Maryland. This one, which I had a still harder time getting a look at, read:
Dearest Poet: It seems like two years since I have seen you, and I have a fear that it’s going to be between one and two months before I see you again. I can’t tell you now, beloved, about what brought me here. There are things that can’t be written. But as soon as I’m back with you, I shall tell you the whole wretched story. If anything should happen—I mean to me—you’ll go on loving me forever, won’t you, beloved? But that’s foolish. Nothing is going to happen. I’m just off the train, and tired from traveling.