She listened until the pain it gave her became unbearable; then touched his hand, and stopped him with an imploring look.
"I, am I dying?" she asked him once, many days after the doctor had told him that she was in a galloping consumption and that her condition was hopeless.
He bowed his head but did not answer.
"I know that I shall die soon," she said. "Give me your hand."
And, taking his outstretched hand, she pressed it to her burning lips and said:
"Forgive me, I have done you wrong. It was all a mistake—and I have worn you out. Now when I am struck down I see that my faith was only fear before what I could not understand, notwithstanding my desire and my efforts. It was fear, but it was in my blood, I was born with it. I have my own mind—or yours—but somebody else's heart; you are right, I understand it now, but my heart could not agree with you."
A few days later she died; he turned grey during her agony; he was only twenty-seven.
Not long ago he married the only friend of that girl, his pupil. It is they who go to the cemetery, to her—they go there every Sunday and place flowers on her grave.
He does not believe in his victory, he is convinced that when she said to him: "You are right," she lied to him in order to console him. His wife thinks the same; they both lovingly revere her memory. This sad episode of a good woman who perished gives them strength by filling them with a desire to avenge her; it gives their mutual work a strangely fascinating character, and renders them untiring in their efforts.
*