With clasped hands they talked together of his mother. Hazel told him all: how she had come upon her that summer's day, and her heart had yearned to know her for his sake; and how she had gone back again, and yet again; all the story of her own struggles for a better life. When she told of her cooking lessons he kissed the little white hands he held, and when she spoke of her hospital work he touched his lips to eyes and brow in reverent worshipfulness.
"And you did all that because----?" he asked and looked deep into her eyes, demanding hungrily his answer.
"Because I wanted to be worthy of your love!" she breathed softly, her eyes down-drooped, her face rosy with her confession.
"Oh, my darling!" he said, and clasped her close once more. Almost the letter itself was forgotten, until it slipped softly to the floor and called attention to itself. There was really after all no need for the letter. It had done its intended work without being read. But they read it together, his arm about her shoulders, and their heads close, each feeling the need of the comforting love of the other because of the bereavement each had suffered.
And thus they read: "MY DEAR SON: "I am writing this letter in what I believe to be the last few days of my life. Long ago I made our dear doctor tell me just what would be the signs that preceded the probable culmination of my disease. He knew I would be happier so, for I had some things I wished to accomplish before I went away. I did not tell you, dear son, because I knew it could but distress you and turn your thoughts away from the work to which you belong. I knew when you came home to me for that dear last visit that I had only a little while longer left here, and I need not tell you what those blessed days of your stay were to me. You know without my telling. You perhaps will blame yourself that you did not see how near the end it was and stay beside me; but John, beloved, I would not have been happy to have had it so. It would have brought before you with intensity the parting side of death, and this I wished to avoid. I want you to think of me as gone to be with Jesus and with your dear father. Besides, I wanted the pleasure of giving you back again to your work before I went away.
"It was because I knew the end was near that I dared do a lot of things that I would have been careful about otherwise. It was in the strength of the happiness of your presence that I forced myself to walk again that you might remember your mother once more on her feet. Remember now when you are reading this I shall be walking the golden streets with as strong and free a gait as you walk your desert, dear. So don't regret anything of the good time we had, nor wish you had stayed longer. It was perfect, and the good times are not over for us. We shall have them again on the other side some day when there are no more partings forever.