lmost frighten myself when I look in
the glass. And before you get this I shall be all gone to dust,
either knowing nothing about you, or trying to praise God, and always
forgetting where I am in my psalm, longing so for you to come. I am
afraid I love you too much to be fit to go to heaven. Then, perhaps, God
will send me to the other place, all for love of you, Andrew. And I do
believe I should like that better. But I don't think he will, if he is
anything like the man I saw in my dream. But I am growing so faint that
I can hardly write. I never felt like this before. But that dream has
given me strength to die, because I hope you will come too. Oh, my dear
Andrew, do, do repent and turn to God, and he will forgive you. Believe
in Jesus, and he will save you, and bring me to you across the deep
place. But I must make haste. I can hardly see. And I must not leave
this letter open for anybody but you to read after I am dead. Good-bye,
Andrew. I love you all the same. I am, my dearest Husband, your
affectionate Wife,

'H. FALCONER.'

Then followed the date. It was within a week of her death. The letter
was feebly written, every stroke seeming more feeble by the contrasted
strength of the words. When Falconer read it afterwards, in the midst
of the emotions it aroused--the strange lovely feelings of such a bond
between him and a beautiful ghost, far away somewhere in God's universe,
who had carried him in her lost body, and nursed him at her breasts--in
the midst of it all, he could not help wondering, he told me, to find
the forms and words so like what he would have written himself. It
seemed so long ago when that faded, discoloured paper, with the gilt
edges, and the pale brown ink, and folded in the large sheet, and sealed
with the curious wax, must have been written; and here were its words so
fresh, so new! not withered like the rose-leaves that scented the paper
from the work-box where he had found it, but as fresh as if just shaken
from the rose-trees of the heart's garden. It was no wonder that Andrew
Falconer should be sitting with his head in his hands when Robert looked
in on him, for he had read this letter.

When Robert saw how he sat, he withdrew, and took his violin again, and
played all the tunes of the old country he could think of, recalling
Dooble Sandy's workshop, that he might recall the music he had learnt
there.

No one who understands the bit and bridle of the association of ideas,
as it is c