Robert, unable to keep himself upright, dropped down upon a chair, and in long, eager breaths, which resembled a sobbing, he drank in the fragrance of the room. It was as if he were trying to absorb into his being the very last trace of her life. A short, dazzling gleam of light darted through the room, danced along the walls, strayed with a yellow flicker across the writing-desk, and made the white-draped dressing-table stand out from the darkness like some crouching phantom. The old man had struck a match and was groping by its aid for the little green-shaded lamp which had lighted Olga's sleepless nights. It stood on the pedestal, in the same place where Olga had extinguished it when about to plunge into eternal night. Its glass bowl was yet nearly full of petroleum. She had been in a hurry to get to rest. Carefully he lifted down the globe and lighted the wick. With a peaceful twilight glow the veiled flame cast its light across the silent chamber. Then he stepped up to the bookshelf, where the gilded volumes were ranged in rows and gleamed in the light. His hand for a little while groped along the wall and then pulled out to the light some blue, rolled-up object. "We have it, Robert," he cried, triumphantly; "come away!" The latter shook his head in silence. The old man urged him again; then he said: "We will read here, uncle--here--where she wrote it." "What if any one should surprise us?" cried the old man, fearfully. Robert shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the floor. The old man was satisfied; they softly drew up their chairs within light of the lamp. After this nothing was audible but the rushing of the winter wind as it swept through the leafless lime-tops, and the monotonously hoarse voice of the reader, accompanied from time to time by the chorus of the funeral party--now swelling up loudly, now dying away to a whisper. VI. "Forgive me, sister, for invoking from the grave your transfigured shade. In remembrance of the deep love you bore me, of the warmth with which my heart beat for you, suffer it, if I attempt to expiate the guilt that weighs so heavily upon me, and whose yoke I must drag along with me to the end of my days! Let me once more live through all the love and kindness you bestowed upon me, and in the memory thereof forget the horrors of loneliness that, like the breath of your tomb, chill my very bones.