MY OWN DEAR COMRADE--I call you my own because you are all that I ever had, but even now the memory of our few brief interviews is all that is left to me, for I must go without you. So happy was I when we first met, that I don't mind telling you, since we shall not meet again, how, in anticipation, I rested in your dear arms and felt your loving caresses; for you were all the world to me then--the only world I had ever known--and the break of day seemed close at hand. But soon the thought of drawing you down into that awful abyss 'twixt heaven and earth, which has whirled its black shadows about me for more than a century, seized me, and I could not willingly make a thrall of the one I loved; and so I leave you to those for whom you are fitted, while I shall continue my solitary life as before. You say that you are lonely without me! But what is your loneliness to mine? I, who never had a comrade; who never felt the joy of friendship; and who was dazed with the sudden flush of love, of hunger satisfied, of companionship! Have you ever felt the want of these, dear Paul? Have you ever known what it is to be alone--to live in an empty world--and that, not for a time, but for ages? Yes, you will say, you understand it, and that you pity me, and yet you do not know its meaning; for you at least can live out the life for which God and nature have fitted you, while I am fit for nothing. You know not what it is to be shunned; to be avoided; to be feared! You go your way, and smile and nod to those you meet, and they are pleased to see you. You are welcome among your friends, as they to you. Live on in that precious state, and feel blessed and happy, for there are worse conditions, although you know it not. And now I am going to tell you a strange thing. It is this: I have shadowed your life from the hour of your birth. I have watched your career, and where able have guided and helped you, knowing that you were one whom I could love. I have helped to make you what you are, and therefore my right of possession is doubly founded, even though my love be too great to lead you astray. Gradually I led you up to the hour when all was ripe, and then mentally impressed you with the letter which you thought you received, and which I knew would affect you through your strongest characteristics--love of adventure, and--curiosity--as well as from the fact that you were susceptible to mental influence. You came, and I was happy--more happy than you will ever know--until my unsated Karma thwarted my plan, and showed that while seeking my own peace, I might possibly endanger yours. That ended all. I could go no further. But even now, as before, I shall come to you in spirit, during the still hours of night; for my love is more intense and strangely different from that which waking men are wont to feel. It is that which sometimes comes in dreams. Do you not know what I mean?