“When I reached home, I lay in the twilight for some time on the sofa, not having strength to get up to my room.  There is, there can be, no possible help or hope in my trouble, no fruition shall follow the promises Spring time held for me.

“Oh, God! if there be a God! but why do I wish to pray?  Have I not prayed before, and not only no answer was vouchsafed, but no sensation of a listening Power, a loving Presence, assuaged my pain.  Yet, human or brute, we must make our groans, though futile, when we are in the grasp of a mortal agony.

“June 20, 18—.

“I have been thankless.  I have been faithless.  Let me bless God’s name, for He has heard my prayer at last, and he will let me die—­very soon.

“It was so cool in the doctor’s office this morning.  The vines about the window made lovely shadows on the white curtains and the floor.  The light was soft.  His round, ruddy German face was almost pale as he stammered out technical terms, in reply to my questions.

“‘Oh, Mees!’ he said, throwing up his fat hands.  ’You ask so mooch!  Den, if I frighten you, you faints, you gets worse.  No, no, I will not have it!’

“But at last, reassured by my calmness, he told me, as I leaned on the back of his high office chair.  A month more, or perhaps two.  Not very much pain, he thought.  But certain.  And I, faithless, have believed the good God did not listen when I prayed!

“Little Elsie is safe and happy with our aunt.  Already she seldom talks of me.  Yet I have had her, my care, my charge, for almost six years.  Children soon forget.  There will be a little money for her education, and Aunt wishes to adopt her.  There is nothing that I need grieve to leave behind.

“If he had still loved me, if it were circumstance that kept our lives apart, I could send for him then; but to die in arms that held me only out of compassion—­glad to relinquish their burden as soon as might be—­no, I must go without seeing his face again.

“And to-night I can only feel the great gladness that it is to be.  Suppose I knew that there were twenty-five more such years as these!  Suppose it should be a mistake, and I had to live!

* * * * *

I looked from these last written words to the photograph.  My eyes were blurred, but Tom only leaned back, motionless as before, apathetic as before.

“How long—­” I began, tentatively.

“She lived a week after that,” Callender replied, in his dry, emotionless voice.

“And the man?”

“He was my brother,” replied Callender.  “She never saw him again.  He married Miss Stockweis about a month after.”

I thought of Ralph Callender, cold, correct, slightly bored, as I have always known him, of Miss Stockweis, a dull, purse-proud blonde.

I seized the poor little photograph and raised it reverently to my lips.

“Forgive me, Tom,” I said, slightly abashed. (I never could control my impulses.) “The best thing you can do is to thank God for her death.  Think of a woman like that—­”