"_A week later_.
"And now I have done it _after all_! I have thrown myself upon his neck; I have satiated myself with his kisses; I have wept my fill in his arms!
"I am calm--quite calm. I have tasted whatever of happiness life had left to offer me, the sinner.
"But what now?
"Since hours I have been face to face with the last great question: "Shall I flee or die?"
"One or the other I must do this very night; for to-morrow he will come to lead me to Martha"s grave.
"Rather than follow him thither, I will die!
"But I will even a.s.sume that I could be enough of a hypocrite not to drop down beside the grave and confess all to him, I will a.s.sume that I should not be choked with loathing of myself, that I should really have enough wretched courage to become his wife; what sort of a life should I lead at his side?
"What is the good of clinging to happiness when one has long since forfeited it? Should I not slink about like some poor criminal in her last hours, everlastingly tortured by the fear of betraying myself to him, and yet filled with the desire to proclaim my guilt to the whole world? How could I sleep in the bed out of which I wished her into her grave! How could I wake between the walls on which there still stands written in flaming letters: "Oh, that she might die!"
"I will converse quite calmly and sensibly with myself, as is meet for one who is making up the account of her life. That I cannot become his wife I know very well.
"Shall I flee?--What should I do among strangers? I know them. I know these people and despise them. They have wrought evil towards me; they would torment me again in the future.
"All the faith, all the love, all the hope still remaining to me, have their foundation in him alone.
"So I must die! The bottles of morphia stand, well preserved, in the corner of my cupboard. I had some suspicion that I might want them, when, in defiance of the old doctor, I secretly saved up their contents. The few hours of sleep which I thereby lost, will now be amply compensated for.
"Only a letter yet to my uncle the doctor; he shall be my heir and my confidant. Perhaps he can help me to wipe away all traces of my deed, so that Robert may suspect nothing. Not a greeting to him. That is the hardest of all, but it must be so.
"I have run out secretly and posted the letter. The watchman was signalling midnight. How empty, how dark is the whole world! In the lime-trees the wind is soughing. Here and there a light is sadly gleaming as if to illumine hidden sorrows. A drunken fellow came shouting along the road and made as if to attack me. Darkness, poverty, and brutality out there--in here guilt and unappeasable longing--that would be my future. Verily this life has nothing more to offer me.
"People talk and write so much about the terror of death. I feel nothing of it. I am content, for I have wept my fill. Those suppressed tears weighed heavily upon me; and weeping makes one weary, they say.
Good-night!"
The End.