I
fled to an angle of the wall and crouched upon the
floor. I tried to pray. I tried to call the name of my
dear husband. Then I heard the door thrown open.
There was an interval of unconsciousness, and when
I revived I felt a strangling clutch upon my throat--
felt my arms feebly beating against something that
bore me backward--felt my tongue thrusting itself
from between my teeth! And then I passed into this
life.
No, I have no knowledge of what it was. The sum
of what we knew at death is the measure of what we
know afterward of all that went before. Of this exist-
ence we know many things, but no new light falls
upon any page of that; in memory is written all of it
that we can read. Here are no heights of truth over-
looking the confused landscape of that dubitable
domain. We still dwell in the Valley of the Shadow,
lurk in its desolate places, peering from brambles and
thickets at its mad, malign inhabitants. How should
we have new knowledge of that fading past?
What I am about to relate happened on a night.
We know when it is night, for then you retire to your
houses and we can venture from our places of con-
cealment to move unafraid about our old homes, to
look in at the windows, even to enter and gaze upon
your faces as you sleep. I had lingered long near the
dwelling where I had been so cruelly changed to what
I am, as we do while any that we love or hate re-
main.
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