“Presently the two who walk hand in hand see their own faces added to the others, with the same smile, the same joy; and it is revealed to them that these faces are immortal.  Through all eternity they will shine on the walls of crystal gold; and those who have once looked on them can never more see in each other change or loss of beauty.

“If as they walk there, in the broad sunbeam, an angel meets them, bearing the tokens of a golden bowl that is broken and a silver cord that is unloosed, they follow him without grief or fear, thinking on that chamber of crystal gold!

“Good-by, darling!

“Esther.”

The third letter was written three years after this one.  Sadness was beginning to cloud the free, joyous outpourings of Esther’s heart.  Probably this sadness was one of the first symptoms of the failure of her health.  It was from this letter chiefly—­although there were expressions in others which deepened the impression—­that we inferred that her lover had tried to stimulate in her an intellectual ambition.

“Wednesday evening.

“Dear one:—­Your last letter gave me great pain.  It breaks my heart to see you looking so earnestly and expectantly into my future.  Beloved, that I have grown and developed so much in the last seven years is no proof that I can still keep on growing.  If you understood, darling, you would see that it is just the other way.  I have grown year by year, hour by hour, because hour by hour I have loved you more.  That is all!  I have felt the growth.  I know it, as clearly as you do.  But I know the secret of it as you do not; and I know the limit of it, as you cannot.  I cannot love you more, precious one!  Neither would I if I could!  One heart-beat more in a minute, and I should die!  But all that you have so much loved and cared for, dear, calling it intellectual growth and expansion in me, has been only the clearing, refining, and stimulating of every faculty, every sense, by my love for you.  When I have said or written a word which has pleased you thus, if there were any special fitness or eloquence in the word, it was only because I sought after what would best carry my thought to you, darling; what would be best frame, best setting, to keep the flowers or the sky which I had to see alone,—­to keep them till you could see them too!  Oh, dear one, do understand that there is nothing of me except my heart and my love!  While they were wonderingly, tremblingly, rapturously growing within me, under the sweet warmth of your love, no wonder I changed day by day.  But, precious one, it is ended.  The whole solemn, steadfast womanhood within me recognizes it.  Beloved master, in one sense you can teach me no more!  I am content.  I desire nothing.  One moment of full consciousness of you, of life, of your love, is more than all centuries of learning, all eternities of inspiration.  I would rather at this moment, dear, lay my cheek on your hand, and sit in my old place by your knee, and feel myself the woman you have made me, than know all that God knows, and make a universe!