self; he was in a sense creator, teacher, parent, friend, idol, lover.
He was the world I have not known; he taught me that I could myself
write, create. I was nearer madness in those days than now, for when he
threw himself here--" She rose and pointed to the floor near the
table--"here on these boards at my feet, and begged me to listen to his
love, to be his wife--I, his wife!--it was as strange, as unreal as a
vision.--I had a month." She did not raise her sweet, level voice, but
the eyes that she fixed on mine were dilated to blackness, and her face
was illumined with an inexpressible light of triumph. "I had one great
month of life. Even you cannot have had more in all your years of the
world than I in my month! And then he returned to his work again. He
was very busy, you understand, a great man, even then, in the world of
letters. He could not come to see me, could not leave; but he wrote
every day. He will never put into his book such words as he wrote me; he
gave me more than he has ever given the world. It may have his books. I
have read them, but I have his very soul in these letters!

"I told you he made me believe that I could write. 'What was I, what was
I,' I used to ask myself, 'to be lifted from this to his height?' And
then I had a secret, which began in that thought. I wrote a novel. It is
eight years back now. I never mentioned it in my letters. I knew it was
good, as good as his own work. He would be so proud! He talked of
publishing-houses, books, authors. I had not forgotten one word. I sent
it to a house, one of the largest and best, and it was accepted. It is
strange, but I was not at all surprised. Somehow I had never doubted it
would be accepted. And then I went to the city alone for a day. I had
only a little time; it seemed to me the greatest act of my life to be
there, where he was, yet not to see him! But you see I had planned it
all in those long nights when the autumn storms would not let me sleep.
The rain would dash against this window, and half awake, I would see