After all, what is life? Such a brief thing! Little in it but duty done well and faithfully. I know you did yours while you lived. I have tried to do mine. It has been hard for me to see what was duty. If I knew as absolute truth that conviction now in my heart--that you never can come back--how then could I go on?
Meriwether--Merne--Merne--I have been calling to you! Have you not heard me? Can you not hear me now, calling to you across all the distances to come back to me? I cannot give you up to the world, because I have loved you so much for myself. It was a cruel fate that parted us--more and more I know that, even as more and more I resolve to do what is my duty. But, oh, I miss you! Come back to me--to one who never was and never can be, but is---Yours, THEODOSIA.
It took him long to read this letter. At last his trembling hand dropped the creased and broken sheets. The guttering light went out. The men were silent, sleeping near their fires. The peace of the great plains lay all about.
She had said it--had said that last fated word. Now indeed he knew what voice had called to him across the deeps!
He reflected now that all these messages had been written to him before he left her; and that when he saw her last she was standing, tears in her eyes, outraged by the act of the man whom she had trusted--nay, whom she had loved!