I have remembered Who wept for a parting between the living and the dead. I have bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate history. I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come.

I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared.

‘I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I have often thought of saying, lately. You won’t mind?’ with a gentle look.

‘Mind, my darling?’

‘Because I don’t know