"If you call this healing, it was not time that brought it, but—a letter."
"A letter!"
"Yes—from Barnow—from her. As soon as I got it I set out for Europe—and went straight to Barnow. I think that I traveled quicker than any one ever did before,—and yet I arrived too late."
"She is dead?" I asked in a low voice.
"Yes; she died four weeks ago."
"She called you to visit her on her deathbed then?"
"As you know the whole story, I will let you read her letter."
He put it in my hand.
It was written in trembling and scarcely legible characters, and ran as follows:
"Spring will soon be here, but I feel that I shall not live to see it, so I will write to you now when I have strength. I do so partly for my own sake, but far more for yours. For my sake, that you may not despise me after I am dead, and for yours, that you may no longer have the pain of feeling that the woman you loved was unworthy of you.
"I lied in that letter which I wrote to you four years ago. I loved you then, love you now, and shall love you till I die. And if God grants that we are the same in heaven as on earth, I shall love you even after death. And it was because I loved you that I parted from you.
"Do not shake your head in despair at these strange words.
"Happiness that I had purchased at the expense of my father's curse and my mother's despair would not have been pure and unsullied. But I should have lived that down.
"One thing alone I could not have got over—you smiled at me for saying so long ago, and yet I was right: my ignorance unfitted me for the position your wife would have to hold.
"I had lived too long, in a little provincial town, a gray, still life passed in utter ignorance of the world and its ways; I could not have borne an active life and the full light of day. I should not have been able rightly to understand you either in sorrow or in joy, and that would have been terrible to me, and perhaps even more terrible to you. I should never have been at my ease with your friends or their wives; they would have laughed at my manners and mode of speaking, and I should have been hurt and you also. You would then perhaps have kept me shut out from society, and I could not have borne that. The thought that my husband was ashamed of me would have been agony to me—as well as to you. And so the time would have surely come of which I once warned you: you would have cursed the hour when I became your wife. You would not have separated from me—I know that. But we should have been unhappy, and you, perhaps, would have been even more unhappy than I.
"I saw all this clearly, and I loved you so dearly that I did not want you to be made miserable through me. So I determined that the sorrow should all be mine—told my parents that I would marry Chaim, and wrote that letter to you.
"Though I lied to you, I told Chaim the whole truth. I told him my story, and said that I could only be his faithful servant and helper. He answered that time would put all right. I knew that it would have no effect, but I had taken up my burden and would bear it.
"It was right, and I do not complain.
"But, alas! I must needs confess that I was too weak to bear my weight of sorrow. I have become pale and ill, and my heart beats so quickly at times that I often faint. I am growing so much weaker that I feel that death must be drawing very near. But I have no fear of death, and I thank God for His goodness in letting me suffer for so short a time, instead of for a long term of years. What good would a long life have been to me?
"Ever since the day I formed the resolution never to be your wife, I have looked forward to writing you one letter that should tell you the whole truth before I died. I never thought that the happiness would have come to me so soon of justifying my conduct in your eyes.
"My life is drawing to a close—our God is truly a merciful God. And now, let me thank you once more for all your love for me. You have been the light and joy of my poor dark life. You made me happy, and are innocent of causing my sorrow. Forgive all the pain that I have brought upon you. It is my last entreaty, and I am dying.
"Ah no!—I have something else to beg of you, and if you do not grant my request, I shall find no rest in the grave.
"Your friend, the doctor's son, told his people in one of his letters that you were now living in a distant land, where the sun is very hot, and where nearly all foreigners die of a malignant fever. He wrote that you had probably gone there because my marriage had caused you misery and despair. I can not tell you what I suffered when I heard that, and were I to attempt to do so you would hardly believe it. But I entreat of you, leave that deadly climate. My heart tells me that you are the greatest and best doctor that ever lived. Come home and help poor sick people.
"Your mother's old prayer-book, that you gave me long ago, shall be buried with me.
"Farewell! May your life be as long and happy as I wish it to be! I shall be dead when you read this letter.
"Rachel."