I returned to the study-door and rapped again, and then grew suddenly much excited:  I almost wished I had not summoned her so soon, but already I heard her step upon the carpet, her hand on the latch and the shutters swung apart.  I strove to calm myself and ask carelessly if she were at home, when I thought I saw a difference in the form and face before me:  they were so like Ellen’s, but not hers.  Had it been in my power to do so, I would have turned at that moment and gone out into the world without questioning any one:  I would gladly have avoided any revelation of ill that might have befallen that household, and gone on as before, thinking it was well with them.  But it was too late:  at the same instant we recognized one another.

“Is it Emma?” I asked fearfully.

“You are not—­”

Ah, yes, it was he who had promised all these years to come, and had come at last!

Then she added, “You have come too late:  Ellen left us one week ago.”

I knew what that meant:  it was the leaving that takes all along with it, and there remains nothing but a memory instead.  It was the leaving that lays bare the heart of hearts, and strikes blind and dumb the agonized soul—­the leaving and the leave-taking that is all bitterness, call it by what name you will—­that makes weak, the strong and confounds the wise, and strikes terror to the breast of stone—­the leaving which is the leaving off of everything that is near and dear and familiar, and the taking on of all that is new and strange—­Death!  Death! at the thought of which even the Son of God faltered and cried, “If it be possible let this cup pass from Me,” alone in that wild night in the garden, with watching and prayers and tears.

I had dreamed out my dream:  it was glorious while it lasted, but I wakened to a reality that was as cruel as it was unexpected.

Emma was a mere child when I left Heartsease:  she had grown into the living image of her sister.  Whenever Emma spoke I seemed to hear the voice and feel the presence of the one who had been gone a whole week when I came in search of her.  I entered the stricken home:  father, mother and maiden aunt—­that good angel of all homes—­were to me as if I had parted with them but yesterday.  We sat in silence for a time:  it seemed to me that if any one spoke there the very walls of the house would distill sorrowful drops.  Our hearts were brimming, our lips were quivering, with inexpressible grief.  It was a solemn and a holy hour; the night closed in about us with unutterable tenderness; the summer stars shed down their radiant beams.