w that I was very ill, and that Philip was anxious and wretched,
but I never thought that I might die. My fierce pain gave me no hint of
death, and so it came almost without warning. I would not believe that
I must go away, and that this brief illness meant death was incredible,
preposterous! I shrank from thinking of it; I cried out that I would
not die; I would not leave Philip! I begged my physicians for life; I
entreated Heaven to spare me; I almost broke my husband's heart by my
wild cries for life. It was a bitter struggle! I prayed for
annihilation--for anything but the knowledge that we were separated. Do
not think that I forgot Nellie, or that I did not grieve to part with
her; but other mothers have loved their children for the father's sake,
and I could have surrendered anything to have kept him. I could trust
her to a Higher love, but for us there was nothing but daily, hourly
union.

"The night before I died--for who can thrust away the inevitable!--I
lay close in Philip's arms as he knelt by my bedside. I was almost
helpless, but I clung body and soul to him. It was poor comfort to tell
each other that this was but a temporary separation; that we had yet an
eternity in which to live together. Eternity was indefinite and far
away, while our parting, his lonely life, my waiting hours, were so
near. I cannot forget how he wept as he held me close, closer to him,
and how his courage failed as he realized how fast my hour of departure
was hastening to us! I do not now know how it was that we did not die
together that night! We talked of it, and it seemed so easy and natural
that we thought we could not help it; but the daylight came, and we
were still alive, clinging to each other.

"But this night of agony did more than death alone could have done, for
it shaped my future. Out of our frantic grief there came a prayer that
has fixed me here, and which has taught me of what love is made!
Together that night we besought Heaven to give me no other happiness
than that I had known in life, but to let me linger near my home, and
be with my husband until he died. I cried out that any other existence
would be hell to me; and with desperate hands we beat against the doors
of prayer, and pleaded for power to choose our own future.

"The next night I died. All day I had laid on my bed passive and quiet.
My grief had worn me out, and I could not have spoken had I wished.
Philip sat by me holding my hand, but he too was s