“I had to go to the churchyard, with the others.  I was compelled to look at the grave and to see the white casket lowered in.  I heard that awful fall of earth upon her and a voice saying those terrible words, ’Dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes.’  The blind man sobbed aloud when the earth fell.  The dark woman with the hard face did not seem to care.  I could have strangled her, but I had to keep my hands still.

“They said that she had not been sleeping and that she took too much laudanum by mistake.  It was not a mistake, for she was not of that sort.  She did it purposely.  She did it because of that one mad hour of full confession.  I have killed her.  After three years of self-control, it failed me, and I went mad.  It was my fault, for if I had not failed, she would not have gone mad, too.  I have killed her.”

“June fifteenth.  Midnight.

“I am calmer now.  I can think more clearly.  I have been alone in the woods all day and every day since—.  I have been thinking, thinking, thinking, and going over everything.  She left no word for me; she was so sure I would understand.  I do not understand yet, but I shall.

[Sidenote:  Estranged]

“There was no wrong between us, there never would have been.  We were divided by the whole earth, denied by all the leagues of sundering sea.  Now we are estranged by all the angels of heaven and all the hosts of hell.

“My arms ache for her—­my lips hunger for hers.  In that mysterious darkness, does she want me, too?  Did her heart cry out for me as mine for her, until the blood of the poppies mingled with hers and brought the white sleep?

“It would have been something to know that we breathed the same air, trod the same highways, listened together to the thrush and robin, and all the winged wayfarers of forest and field.  It would have been comfort to know the same sun shone on us both, that the same moon lighted the midnight silences with misty silver, that the same stars burned taper-lights in the vaulted darkness for her and for me.

[Sidenote:  One Hour]

“But I have not even that.  I have nothing, though I have done no wrong beyond holding her in my arms for one little hour.  Out of all the time that was before our beginning, out of all the time that shall be after our ending, and in all the unpitying years of our mortal life, we have had one hour.”

“June nineteenth.

“I have been to her grave.  I have tried to realise that the little mound of earth upon the distant hill, over which the sun and stars sweep endlessly, still shelters her; that, in some way, she is there.  But I cannot.

“The mystery agonises me, for I have never had the belief that comforts so many.  Why is one belief any better than another when we come face to face with the grey, impenetrable veil that never parts save for a passage?  Freed from the bonds of earth, does she still live, somewhere, in perfect peace with no thought of me?  Sentient, but invisible, is she here beside me now?  Or is she asleep, dreamlessly, abiding in the earth until some archangel shall sound the trumpet bidding all the myriad dead arise?  Oh, God, God!  Only tell me where she is, that I may go, too!”