The writing of a letter to Dahlia had previously been attempted and abandoned as a sickening task.

Like an idle boy with his holiday imposition, Edward shelved it among the nightmares, saying, "How can I sit down and lie to her!" and thinking that silence would prepare her bosom for the coming truth.
Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love.

There is nothing violent about it; no shock is given; Hope is not abruptly strangled, but merely dreams of evil, and fights with gradually stifling shadows.

When the last convulsions come they are not terrific; the frame has been weakened for dissolution; love dies like natural decay.

It seems the kindest way of doing a cruel thing.