"He wrote it," she said aloud. "The man who is dead—who is dead; and it was not finished at all."
She closed the window, eager to shut out the wind; then she closed the door and went back to the papers. Her fancies concerning Stephen Murdoch had taken very definite shape from the first. She knew two things of him; that he had been gentle and unworldly, and that he had cherished throughout his life a hope which had eluded him until death had come between him and his patient and unflagging labor.
The sight of the yellow faded papers moved her to powerful feeling. She had never had a friend; she had stood alone from her earliest childhood, and here was a creature who had been desolate too—who must have been desolate, since he had been impelled to write the simple outcome of his thoughts again and again upon the paper he wrought on, as if no human being had been near to hear. It was this which touched her most of all. There was scarcely a sheet upon which some few words were not written. Each new plan bore its date, and some hopeful or weary thought. He had been tired often, but never faithless to his belief. The end was never very far off. A few days, one more touch, would bring it,—and then he had forgotten all the past.
"I can afford to forget it," he said once. "It only seems strange now that it should have lasted so long; when so few steps remain to be taken."
These words had been written on his leaving America. He was ready for his departure. They were the last record. When she had read them, Christian pushed the papers away and sat gazing into space with dilated eyes.
"He died," she said. "He is dead. Nothing can bring him back; and it is forgotten."
