"He hoped to be able to procure a divorce from his wife. It was impossible. Without hesitation I resolved of my own accord to follow him. In the midst of the agony which it has cost me to break with all my former associations, I am sustained by a sense of right.
"It is grand and beautiful to suffer for a noble and highly-gifted fellow-being,--beautiful to be able to say, 'Providence has chosen me to shed light into his darkened soul.' I do not waste a thought upon what I resign in thus fulfilling my mission, but the consciousness of the pain I shall cause my dear grandmother and you weighs me to the earth. She will forgive me, and you, my poor friend, you will forget me. I would gladly find consolation in this conviction; but no, it does not comfort me. Of all that I must give up with my old life, your friendship is what I shall lack most painfully.
"Goswyn! for God's sake do not judge me falsely and harshly! What I do, I do in the absolute conviction that it is right. If this conviction should ever fail me, then---- But I cannot harbour that idea!--it would be too terrible. I cannot be mistaken!
"I have a fearful attack of cowardice as I write to you, and a sudden dread takes possession of me. Am I equal to the task I have undertaken? Will he always be content to live apart from the world with me alone?
"I am prepared for that also. If his feeling for me should wane, my task will be done, he will need me no longer. Then I will vanish from his life, and from life itself, like a poor taper that is extinguished when the sun rises. I shall have the courage to extinguish it; it will be a trifle in comparison with what I am now doing. Oh, God! how hard it is! Goswyn, adieu! One thing more, and this I tell you because this is my farewell to you. Whether it will console you, or add one more pang to your sorrow, I cannot tell, but I am constrained to lay bare my heart before you: these are as it were the words of a dying woman. If last autumn you had said one kind word to me, I should now have been your wife, and you should not have repented it! All that is over. Fate had another destiny in store for me.
"Once more, farewell!
"Forgive me for causing you pain, and sometimes think of your poor friend,
"Erika Lenzdorff."
Now all was done. She put on her travelling-dress, a plain dark suit in which she was wont to pay visits to the poor.
She looked at the clock--seven! One half-hour more, and she must go; and she could not go without something to lend her physical strength. She rang for a cup of tea, swallowed it hastily, and for the last time walked through the four rooms occupied by her grandmother and herself. Then she took her travelling-bag, which she had packed with a few necessaries, put on her straw hat, and went.