er, they have never robbed
her. Is not this best? your questioning eyes ask me. Perhaps it is. I
have often taken my jealous heart to task; and remembering how solitary
Philip's home would have been, how much he has gained in these new
loves, I have tried to say it _was_ the best. But he was not bound to
me only for life--for my life. Our love reached out toward the other
world and swore eternal fidelity, and I--_I_ have not been freed
from him.

"But this is not all. I might reconcile myself to this and be content.
I love Philip so truly that I think I could sacrifice my dearest, most
selfish wishes to him, and be satisfied to see him prosperous and
happy. But whether it is a keener sight that I possess, whether it is a
natural change that comes to all who submit to the influence of the
world, I know not; but Philip is not the same artist--he is not the
same man; but this, I think, no one knows; that his pictures have
changed is clear to all. Once he worked for the sake of the best; now
he works for 'success'; and Esther rates his paintings at the price
they bring. But had I lived even this might have been. Yet this is not
all. The sting, the bitterness of my bereavement is in my knowledge
that we are parted for ever. If Philip had not grown so far away from
me in the years in which he has not known me, I could expect some happy
reunion with him; but this man will need me no more in Heaven than he
now does upon earth. If I could now return to him and take Esther's
place by his side, I would jar upon him, displease him. He might love
me, but there would be little affinity between us. And I--have I not
changed? has not my ignorance turned to bitterness, my confidence to
disbelief? But it seems to me that a little sunshine would bring back
all that was sweet or good in me--yet I cannot tell. But this I know:
in the future the soul of this man will lay no claim to mine. We get
nothing without its price, and Philip has paid for a second love by the
loss of all he once thought dearest. Still it may be best, it may be
right.

"As for myself, some change is coming to me. It must be so, or I would
not be here to-night. You know what perhaps is to occur; you know how
long I was to linger; but of this I cannot speak. If I shall never see
him again, do you think I can talk of it?

"But, child, it fills me with wonder as I think that the spirit world
in which I have so long dwelt, of which I know nothing, is now,
perhaps, to be