Say that it is morbid--call it superstition if
you like; but there it is, the most powerful motive I have known,
always in all things to be taken into account--a philosophy of
life to be made to fit it. Or take it as a symbol, since that
may come to be one with the thing symbolized. In those darkest
days in the forest I had her as a visitor--a Rima of the mind,
whose words when she spoke reflected my despair. Yet even then I
was not entirely without hope. Heaven itself, she said, could
not undo that which I had done; and she also said that if I
forgave myself, Heaven would say no word, nor would she. That is
my philosophy still: prayers, austerities, good works--they avail
nothing, and there is no intercession, and outside of the soul
there is no forgiveness in heaven or earth for sin. Nevertheless
there is a way, which every soul can find out for itself--even
the most rebellious, the most darkened with crime and tormented
by remorse. In that way I have walked; and, self-forgiven and
self-absolved, I know that if she were to return once more and
appear to me--even here where her ashes are--I know that her
divine eyes would no longer refuse to look into mine, since the
sorrow which seemed eternal and would have slain me to see would
not now be in them.
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