She turned over the pages of her Bible, until she found what she sought. It was a letter. She took it and said, still holding it lovingly:
“I received this letter from Hel before she died. She asked me to give it you, when, as she said, you had found your way home to me and to yourself....”
Soundlessly moving his lips, Joh Fredersen stretched out his hand for the letter.
The yellowish envelope contained but a thin sheet of paper. Upon it stood, in the handwriting of a girlish woman:
“I am going to God, and do not know when you will read these lines, Joh. But I know you will read them one day, and, until you come, I shall exhaust the eternal blissfulness in praying God to forgive me for making use of two Sayings from His Holy Book, in order to give you my heart, Joh.
“One is: ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love.’ The other: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!'
“Hel.”
It took Joh Fredersen a long time before he succeeded in replacing the thin sheet of note-paper in the envelope. His eyes gazed through the open window by which his mother sat. He saw, drawing across the soft, blue sky, great, white clouds, which were like ships, laden with treasures from a far-off world.
“Of what are you thinking, child?” asked his mother’s voice, with care.
But Joh Fredersen gave her no answer. His heart, utterly redeemed, spoke stilly within him: