Yes,—­he was gone!  And my life’s work was complete!

I cannot tell what happened after that.  I suppose they must have found him, and laid him out, and buried him; but I remember nothing of it.  Since then I have lived in this great, gloomy house, with its barred doors and windows.  Never since I came here have I seen a face that I knew.  Maniacs are all about me; I meet them in the halls, the gardens; sometimes I hear the fiercer sort raving and dashing about their cells.  But I do not feel afraid of them.

It is strange how they all fancy that the rest are mad, and they the only sane ones.  Some of them even go so far as to think that I have lost my reason.  I heard one woman say, not long ago,—­“Why, she has been mad these twenty years!  She never was married in her life; but she believes all these things as if they were really so, and tells them over to anybody who will listen to her.”

Mad these twenty years!  So young as I am, too!  And I never married, and all my wrongs a maniac’s raving!  I was angry at first, and would have struck her; then I thought, “Poor thing!  Why should I care?  She does not know what she is saying.”

And I go about, seeing always before me that pallid, horror-stricken face; and wishing sometimes—­oh, how vainly!—­that I had listened to him that bright October day,—­that I had been a happy wife, perchance a happy mother.  But no, no!  I must not think thus.  Once I look at it in that way, my whole life becomes a terror, a remorse.  I will not, must not, have it so.

Then let me rejoice again, for I have had my revenge,—­a great, a glorious revenge!

* * * * *

LEFT BEHIND.

  It was the autumn of the year;
  The strawberry-leaves were red and sere;
  October’s airs were fresh and chill,
  When, pausing on the windy hill,
  The hill that overlooks the sea,
  You talked confidingly to me,
  Me, whom your keen artistic sight
  Has not yet learned to read aright,
  Since I have veiled my heart from you,
  And loved you better than you knew.

  You told me of your toilsome past,
  The tardy honors won at last,
  The trials borne, the conquests gained,
  The longed-for boon of Fame attained: 
  I knew that every victory
  But lifted you away from me,—­
  That every step of high emprise
  But left me lowlier in your eyes;
  I watched the distance as it grew,
  And loved you better than you knew.

  You did not see the bitter trace
  Of anguish sweep across my face;
  You did not hear my proud heart beat
  Heavy and slow beneath your feet;
  You thought of triumphs still unwon,
  Of glorious deeds as yet undone;—­
  And I, the while you talked to me,
  I watched the gulls float lonesomely
  Till lost amid the hungry blue,
  And loved you better than you knew.