How was it that this woman, whom I had met but little more than a year ago, had come to be nearer to me than any kith or kin? Life had broadened, had grown rich, since her life had come into mine. In my little narrow routine, fashioned according to the demands of society and its conventionalities, I had never before dreamed of its possibilities.
Mildred tried to talk, but I could not answer. At last, breaking down completely, I sobbed out, “Oh, Mildred, Mildred, I cannot let you go. I have no one in the wide world but you. You will never, never come back.”
I had meant to be brave and not to sadden these last moments by my selfish grief, but a sudden premonition of evil had taken hold of me. I was not superstitious, but I felt a convulsive clutch at my heart as I looked up into her beautiful dark eyes through the mist in my own.
“Don’t be morbid, darling,” said she, trying to speak cheerfully, and drawing my arm closer in her embrace. But her voice sounded to me strange and far away.
“There are few women ever blessed with such a sister as you have been to me,” she said tenderly. “You alone among women have made me feel this last year that you loved me for myself, and would have loved me just the same were I the lonely teacher among my books instead of a favored, flattered, rich woman. Others have given me adulation, you have given me love. And now, dear, that you may know that I know how real a sister you have been to me, until we meet again wear this for me.”
I saw the red gleam of the rare jewel in her white hand, as over my finger, held in her own warm grasp, she slipped the ruby ring, her dead sister’s ring which I had always seen her wear.
I said no word of thanks. I scarcely realized what she had done. I was dumb with the misery of those moments—a death’s-knell seemed sounding in my ears.
We paced on again in silence, letting the precious moments pass. Presently she said, as if in reply to the wild outburst of emotion which had passed and left me numb and speechless, “Yes, dear, it may be as you fear. Whether we meet again, God only knows. But whether it be you or I that goes first into the great wonderful Beyond, of which we have so often talked, I think we shall not be sorry, we shall not be afraid.
“‘For from the things we see
We trust the things to be,