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