me. If it be a Spirit, then the
bridge will bear it safely; if it be woman----

"But I dismiss the thought. If it be human thing why does it sit gazing
at me, never speaking; why does my tongue refuse to question it; why
does all power forsake me in its presence, so that I stand as in a
dream? Yet if it be Spirit, why do I hear the passing of her feet; and
why does the night-rain glisten on her hair?

[Illustration: "TO THE UTMOST EDGE."]

"I force myself back into my chair. It is far into the night, and I am
alone, waiting, listening. If it be Spirit, she will come to me; and if
it be woman, I shall hear her cry above the storm--unless it be a demon
mocking me.

"I have heard the cry. It rose, piercing and shrill, above the storm,
above the riving and rending of the bridge, above the downward crashing
of the logs and loosened stones. I hear it as I listen now. It is
cleaving its way upward from the depths below. It is wailing through the
room as I sit writing.

"I have crawled upon my belly to the utmost edge of the still standing
pier until I could feel with my hand the jagged splinters left by the
fallen planks, and have looked down. But the chasm was full to the brim
with darkness. I shouted, but the wind shook my voice into mocking
laughter. I sit here, feebly striking at the madness that is creeping
nearer and nearer to me. I tell myself the whole thing is but the fever
in my brain. The bridge was rotten. The storm was strong. The cry is but
a single one among the many voices of the mountain. Yet still I listen,
and it rises, clear and shrill, above the moaning of the pines, above
the mighty sobbing of the waters. It beats like blows upon my skull, and
I know that she will never come again."

_Extract from the last letter:_

"I shall address an envelope to you, and leave it among them. Then,
should I never come back, some chance wanderer may one day find and post
them to you, and you will know.

"My books and writings remain untouched. We sit together of a
night--this woman I call 'wife' and I--she holding in her hands some
knitted thing that never grows longer by a single stitch, and I with a
volume before me that is ever open at the same page. And day and night
we watch each other stealthily, moving to and fro about the silent
house; and at times, looking round swiftly, I catch the smile upon her
lips before she has time to smooth it away.

"We speak like strangers about this an