I trembled, though not much, having so strong a belief in the impossibility of parting. Yet there must have been an expression I hardly intended in the cry “Oh, Max, tell me,” for he again stopped suddenly, and seemed to forget himself in looking at and thinking of me.
“Stay, Theodora,—you have something to tell me first. Are you better? Have you been growing stronger daily? You are sure?”
“Quite sure. Now—tell me.”
He tried to speak once or twice, vainly. At last he said:—
“I—I wrote you a letter.”
“I never got it.”
“No; I did not mean you should until my death. But my mind has changed. You shall have it now. I have carried it about with me, on the chance of meeting you, these four days. I wanted to give it to you—and—to look at you. Oh, my child, my child.”
After a little while, he gave me the letter, begging me not to open it till I was alone at night.
“And if it should shock you—break your heart?”
“Nothing will break my heart.”