"I knew what I should find when I went up the hill.

"The doctors said 'heart disease.' She had been troubled with some
such weakness. I alone knew the truth! As I had known myself, she had
known me!

"You think you suffer--you, who might, but for me, have made her
happy, as such women should be, in a world of simple natural joys! My
friend, loss without guilt is pain--but it is not without the balm of
virtuous compensation. You have at least a right to grieve.

"But I! I am forced to know myself. To feel myself borne along in
spite of myself; and to realize that she who should have worn a crown
of happy womanhood, lies there a sacrifice, to be bewailed like
Jepthah's one fair daughter; and to sit here in full dread of the
ebbing of even this great emotion, knowing too well that it will pass
out of my life when it shall have achieved its purpose, leaving only
as evidence _this_--another great work, crystalized into immortality
in everlasting stone. I know that I cannot long hold it here in my
heart. The day will come--perhaps soon--when I shall stand outside
that door, and recognize this as my work, and be proud of it, without
the power to grieve, as I do now; when I shall approve my own
handiwork, and be unable to mourn for her who was sacrificed to
achieve it. What is your pain to mine?"

And I saw the hot tears drop from his eyes. I saw them fall on the
marble floor, and they watered the very spot where his name was so
soon to spring up in pride to confess his handiwork.