"I'm lonesome. I'm tired. I don't feel well. The old ladies would say I'm 'under the weather.' Why, I can't even keep feeling right when you're away. "I want you. I want you--here--now. I can't talk to you on this infernal machine, my hands groping around just as senselessly as my thoughts. I tell you, liebchen, blindness is bad business. It sounds well in a poem, but it's a bad thing to live with. It's bad to wake up in the night sometimes and think that it will be daylight soon and then remember that it will never be daylight for you again! "I wish you were here. I'm just in the mood for talking--not talking, perhaps, but having you close to me, and understanding. "There's one thing that there's no perhaps about. That's you. There's no perhaps when it comes to our love. There's no perhaps-- "Now, that made me fall a-dreaming. I stopped writing and lighted my pipe and sat a long time, thinking of you. It's 'our hour'--I know that, because I heard the clock strike. Where are you? Why aren't you here? "I want you. Believe I said that before, but if I said it a thousand times, I couldn't make it strong enough. I don't know why I want you like this--this soul want. It isn't just your kisses, your sweetness, the dear things about you. I want you to be here to understand--for you would--you do. "My light in the darkness, my Ernestine! I shall never let you go away again. The darkness is too dark without you. "Evening now, for again I stopped; too tired, too quiet, someway, to feel like writing. I am going to bed. I wish you were here for your good-night kiss. I wish you were here just to tell me that you understand all these things I have not been able to say. I wish you were here to tell me--what in my heart I know--that you are going to bring me the light, that love will light the way. I wish you were here to tell me that what my eyes cannot tell you, as they used to, you can read now just by the beating of my heart, just through the fullness of our silences. "Oh, little one--your eyes--your dear eyes--your lovely hair--your smile--your arms about my neck--your whispered word in my ear--your soft cheek against mine--your laugh--your voice--your tenderness--I want it all to-night--and the Ernestine of the silences--the Ernestine who understands without knowing--helps without trying. "Soon you will be back. That will be sunrise after long darkness. "Good-night. It's hard to leave you--so lonesome--wanting you so. Again, good-night, dear girl for whom my arms are yearning. Bless you, sweetheart--God bless you--and does God, Himself, know what you have been to me?" She read the last of it, as always, with sobs uncontrollable. Dr. Parkman--everything--was forgotten. It was Karl alone in the library, longing for her, needing her--and she not there. "Oh, Karl--Karl!" she sobbed across the black chasm of the year--"if I could only have had that hour!" CHAPTER XLI WHEN THE TIDE CAME IN