Themis had spent hours agonizing over blank parchment, her intentions pure, but her will wavering. In the end, it didn't matter what she put on parchment, because the letter was quickly burned, never to see its recipient. Had she sent it, Samuel Griffith would have received the following:

16 December 1894

Samuel,

I hesitate to write you, because how could I say in writing what I’ve failed to say in words? God, I wish I had the nerve to tell you in words what I experienced in your presence, the overwhelming emotion that could only be yours? Merlin, I hate this simpering thing I’ve become for you, the urge to pine and waste away as if your absence was the most monumental part of my day. It will not do, it cannot suffice.

I miss you. I miss and I long and I burn for you. But I am a fool in full. I will never give this to an owl, I will never tell you how desperately I ache for you. It would be a fool’s errand, to ever be so broken in front of a man. It will never be, I could not forgive myself, not when I will never know the depths or quality of your affection.

Idiotic and impossible, perhaps those are the truest words for our predicament. It can be nothing more.
How I will live and die resenting that.

And other words I’ll never say,

Yours,
T.L.

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   Samuel Griffith