All through the most respectful terms. When was it written? There was no date given; but the writer of the letter was abroad; so it was after their life together here. The letter was one long wail of despair, a grief so genuine, never had she read of anything greater.
Josephine's hand shook so that she was obliged to put the letter down on the table.
She read how Karl through all this cruel slander could not think of anyone or anything else; she read how he in that way had come to love Ragni. Josephine saw this love, engendered by sorrow, gratitude, devotion, find vent in pure and touching words.
Ragni innocent? Good God, was she innocent? Then all those harrowing scenes between her and Edward, as Death separated them inch by inch from one another (Sissel Anne had so often described them to her), they must indeed have been hard to bear! Yes, now she understood why he had driven away that day with her body, and had Karl Meek by his side; only she could not understand how he had survived it.
There was a knock at the door; she started in her seat. But it was only the servant girl who came to ask her to go down to supper. She could not answer, again there was a knock. "No, no!" she managed to articulate as she writhed in sorrow and shame. She must go to her brother, she would go to him, if she went there on her knees.
But here were more papers, and she felt as though her brother was standing over her commending her to read them. She trembled and read:
"Now that I am about to copy what I have written down after many trials and failures about my childhood and my first marriage, I feel myself to be so tired--so done up. I had intended to write a few words as beginning, and looked forward to it. Now it is too late for that. Now I can only just tell to you, 'the white pasha' of my life, how it has fared with me. I have told it briefly for it was torture to me; and I have only told it so that you may defend my cause should anyone still think it worth while to speak evil of me after I am gone. Dear friend, I do not murmur. I have lived as purely and nobly as I could live; it has only been too, too short. Know, that I had thrown myself away from sheer horror of something still worse--and then you came and took me out of the deep waters and giving me in keeping of good people I found peace and all good things--till you could come again and bear me away to yourself. To think that I might share all in your home and yourself too without deserving it; for I felt that often; but I was happy all the same.
"I did not suffice for you here, I know it; but now that the end is near, it does not seem to matter. You would have borne with me as long as it lasted, I feel so sure of that."
"My friend, were I now to tell you all I feel of gratitude and admiration for you, you would not understand it; it has seemed so natural to you that all the happiness of your life came from me. And that was what was most beautiful in mine too.
"But you will not read this until the day when I no longer am sitting in this chair, and nothing can imprint my memory so vividly on you and make it live on in you, as one long, everlasting: