“My story proves me a contemptible weakling. I know I am not a whit above the cheap hero of the old-time, pirate novel, the fellow who does the gloomy, manages to look as though the hand of Fate was ever upon him, and has a secret sorrow as big as an omnibus, which he wants all the world to know. I am not made of the right kind of stuff or I should not have given up at the first blow of Destiny. ‘Man yields himself not to the angels nor even unto Death itself, save through the weakness of his own poor will.’
“Had Emma’s father lived, the care of him might have proved a prop to me, but the shock killed him, and he died a few weeks after she did. I had my brother, younger than myself, and we loved each other, but I argued that he did not need me, and left him. He loves me still and follows me with the kindest, dearest letters, and is always begging me to come back to him; but I will not be a cloud upon his happiness and prosperity. Yet his sympathy and yours are all that is left in the world precious to me.
“My love for you is different from my early love. In that day the castles I constructed were very worldly ones. Now, I have no worldly ambitions whatever. It seems to me that by some kind of kinship of soul, if there is such a thing as soul, you belong to me, and never can be taken from me, though our lives may be widely separated. If you were the vilest and most degraded creature in the world and yet were yourself, I should love you just the same.
“After Emma went away I tried hard to tear from Death its well-guarded secret. I wanted to know if the dark hole in the ground is the end of us all. I pounded fiercely on the very doors of the tomb, begging piteously for an answer. None came. No; never a word came out of the silence into which she had gone. The people who say they believe in a hereafter quote at us those exasperating scriptural questions: ‘O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ I can answer them. The sting is here, in my heart. The victory is over all my hopes, dreams and ambitions. People who believe! Are there any such? They only say they believe. It is all mere mouthing. Can any man believe that which he does not know? Their twaddle about faith and heaven enraged me. I wanted proof, proof—though but a whispered word, the faintest touch of a vanished hand, or the tiniest scratch of a familiar pen. Proof! Proof! Oh for the proof that she lived somewhere. Had I had that I could have laughed long and loud at Death, the liar and the cheat. The merest thread of a rope would have served for me to hold to, I was so eager to believe. But nobody let it down to me—not then, nor in all the years since.
“Yet now, in spite of all that, when I look at you, I cannot persuade myself that you are to die—to cease from living. You carry with you a conviction of immortality. Your intense individuality seems like a deathless thing. It reminds me of the words of the young Greek in the drama of Ion. When his life was to be sacrificed, his beloved asks if they shall meet again. He says, ‘I have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal—of the streams that flow forever—of the stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirit has walked in glory. All are dumb. But as I gaze upon thy living face, I see something in the love that lights its beauty which cannot wholly perish. We shall meet again, Clemanthe?’
“What answer have you for the question? ‘If a man die shall he live again?’”
“About that I think much, hope a little sometimes, but know nothing,” she said.
“No; we know nothing,” he echoed, with a sigh; “but it is something to hope. I have a fancy that the road is not long ahead of me here, and I may soon have a chance to know what there is or know nothing. If we have an existence beyond this objective one, I may be able to help you from there. It would be helping you could I but come and tell you that I lived, would it not?”
“What greater service could you do me?”
“If I could do that I might do more. Who knows? Of course it is absurd to speak of helping you without explaining what I mean. Apparently you need nobody’s help. You are strong of character, self-poised, capable, successful and fearless. I see all that, yet I cannot rid myself of the fear that you are destined to suffer much and will need the service and sympathy of all who love you. From life I have learned a little. When great strength is given I know it will be needed. And you are stronger in character than you know. I should like to save you from suffering, but were I ever so rich and powerful, I know I could not do it. You must meet your destiny, whatever it may be. As the Scotch say, ‘must dree your weird.’ Nobody else can live your life for you, for, alas! life admits of no proxy. I have woven many fanciful theories about you and your past, present and future.”