I could laugh at the idea.—What did they mean by it?
Min, dead!—God in heaven—how could they torture me so!
But, it was true.
I cannot bear to speak of it all now, it unmans me. It makes me, a great strong man, appear as a little sobbing child!
I do not know what went on for days after I realised what had happened to me. I was mad, I believe; for they said I had lost my senses.
And even now, sometimes, I feel as if I were not myself, when I recall the past with all its empty dreams—in which I almost attained to paradise—that were ruthlessly swept away in one fell swoop by the agony of hell I suffered on being conscious of my loss.
No, I am not myself. There is something missing in me—something that completed my identity; and, without which, I am not even a perfect atom on the ocean of time—as I will be nothing in, the labyrinth of eternity!—For,—
“The waves of a mighty sorrow
Have whelmed the pearl of my life;
And there cometh for me no morrow,
To solace this desolate strife!”
When I was able to bear the narration, I was told all.
Min had caught a violent cold only a week before the Christmas-eve on which she expected me; and, in spite of all that science and love could do, she died before the dawn of the new year. She had looked forward to seeing me to the last, hoping against hope. She knew, she had said, that I would keep my word and come when she sent for me. But, when Christmas-eve arrived without my coming, she did not seem disappointed. She then said that God had willed it otherwise:—something must have arisen to prevent my arrival:—we would meet again in the Great Hereafter:—she would leave a message for me, to reconcile me to our brief separation, ere we met once more.