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reboding which stole over her--it was not put into words, and yet it was breathed from every line (a thousand times sweeter so!) the foreboding, aye, the certainty, that he, yes, that he had loved her!--and the second was that he had at the same time been fully aware of her love, long, long before she had grasped it herself! and he had not hinted at this by so much as a look. How considerate he had been! And yet, what must he not have seen in her heart! Was it true? Could it be true? Ah! it was all one! And yet amidst her grief the thought of being able to feel all this to the core as _he_ had felt, was like the sun shining behind a misty atmosphere and gradually bursting through the layers of fog with thousands of undreamed-of light effects, above and below. How freely she could breathe again after the void, privation, brooding of many years. Not until later did individual thoughts force themselves forward, then not fully until Roennaug came to her. There was something labored in this letter; it read occasionally like a translation from a foreign language. But now for the _letter itself_:-- I have just returned from the south. I thought myself strong enough. Alas! The papers have doubtless informed you that I am ill; but the papers do not know what I now know! The first thing I do in this new certainty is to write to you, dear Magnhild. You will, of course, be painfully surprised at the sight of my signature. I awakened great hopes--and failed when they should have been fulfilled. A thousand times since I have thought how impossible it would be for you to go to the piano and try over some song we three had studied together, or some exercise we two had gone through. A miracle would have been needed to compel you to do so. A thousand times I have considered whether I should write to you, and tell you what I must now tell you, that this has been the deepest sorrow of my life. You set me free from a once rich, but afterward unworthy relation, and this was my salvation. The germ of innocence in my soul was once more released. The entire extent of my emancipation, however, I did not realize so long as we were together. And I repaid you for what you had done for me by desolating your life, so far as lay within my power. But I have also yearned to tell you what I now believe: our destiny upon earth is not alone
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