My heart sank.... I sat down on a chair beside him, and involuntarily dropping my eyes before the horror and hideousness of it, I too held out my hand.
But it seemed to me that it was not his hand that took hold of me.
It seemed to me that between us is sitting a tall, still, white woman. A long robe shrouds her from head to foot. Her deep, pale eyes look into vacancy; no sound is uttered by her pale, stern lips.
This woman has joined our hands.... She has reconciled us for ever.
Yes.... Death has reconciled us....
April 1878.
A VISIT
I was sitting at the open window ... in the morning, the early morning of the first of May.