"Beloved," I sighed through a gathering mist of consciousness. I felt some hot tears falling on my face. I felt a kiss seal my lips. I felt a breathing in my ear.
"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said. "I've only brought you sorrow and pain, but you've brought me love, that love that is a dazzling light, beside which the sunshine is as darkness."
"Berna!" I raised myself; I put out my arms to clasp her. They clasped the empty air. Wildly, wildly I looked around. She was gone!
"Berna!" Again I cried, but there was no reply. I was alone, alone. Then a great weakness came over me....
I never saw her again.
THE LAST
It is finished. I have written here the story of my life, or of that portion of it which means everything to me, for the rest means nothing. Now that it is done, I too have done, so I sit me down and wait. For what am I waiting? A divine miracle perhaps.
Somehow I feel I will see her again, somehow, somewhere. Surely God would not reveal to us the shining light of the Great Reality only to plunge us again into outer darkness? Love cannot be in vain. I will not believe it. Somehow, somewhere!
So in the glow of the great peat fire I sit me down and wait, and the faith grows in me that she will come to me again; that I will feel the soft caress of her hand upon my pillow, that I will hear her voice all tuned to tenderness, that I will see through my tear-blinded eyes her sweet compassionate face. Somehow, somewhere!