be sent to
Southampton, for the day was now closing. I waited in the post-
office that night till the doors were closed, toward midnight, in
the hope that good news might still come, but there was no message.
We sat silent at home till one in the morning waiting--waiting for
we knew not what. Then we took the earlier morning train, and when
we reached Southampton the message was there. It said the recovery
would be long but certain. This was a great relief to me, but not
to my wife. She was frightened. She and Clara went aboard the
steamer at once and sailed for America, to nurse Susy. I remained
behind to search for another and larger house in Guildford.

That was the 15th of August, 1896. Three days later, when my wife
and Clara were about half-way across the ocean, I was standing in
our dining-room, thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram
was put into my hand. It said, "Susy was peacefully released
to-day."

Some of those who in later years wondered at Mark Twain's occasional
attitude of pessimism and bitterness toward all creation, when his
natural instinct lay all the other way, may find here some reasons
in his logic of gloom. For years he and his had been fighting various
impending disasters. In the end he had torn his family apart and set
out on a weary pilgrimage to pay, for long financial unwisdom, a heavy
price--a penance in which all, without complaint, had joined. Now, just
when it seemed about ended, when they were ready to unite and be happy
once more, when he could hold up his head among his fellows--in this
moment of supreme triumph had come the message that Susy's lovely and
blameless life was ended. There are not many greater dramas in fiction
or in history than this. The wonder is not that Mark Twain so often
preached the doctrine of despair during his later life, but that he did
not exemplify it--that he did not become a misanthrope in fact.

Mark Twain's life had contained other tragedies, but no other that
equaled this one. This time none of the elements were lacking--not the
smallest detail. The dead girl had been his heart's pride; it was a year
since he had seen her face, and now by this word he knew that he would
never see it again. The blow had found him alone absolutely alone among
strangers--those others--half-way across the ocean, drawing nearer
and nearer to it, and he with no way to warn them, to prepare them, to