Princess Zara - Page 127/127

If Zara be not with you, seek her.

The name will be familiar to you, by reason of your late

employment, even though she may have escaped your personal

recognition till now. Therefore, I repeat, if Zara be not with you

now, turn about and seek her. I charge you so.

But something tells me that you will be together, standing side by

side, happier in the great love that has come to you both, than all

your dreams have ever promised. Therefore, I bless you and may the

good God who made you for each other, hold you in his keeping

always.

SABEREVSKI.

Zara and I were both strangely silent after the reading of the letter,

but I took her quietly in my arms, and she pillowed her head against my

shoulder while we looked out across the moonlit sea, praising God, and

insensibly calling down blessings upon the name of our good friend.

"Saberevski knew me to be a nihilist, and warned me against it that

day," she said to me.

"He was the dearest friend I ever had," I replied; and she murmured: "He was a good man."

Who can tell how Alexis Saberevski could have foreseen this meeting of

the ways, between Zara and me? What was it that directed his prophetic

vision across the mystery of many months, to discover us two, standing

side by side, when we perused his letter? What was it that told him

that we would love and wed?

Many years have passed since that night on the steamship's deck, and we

have never seen nor heard from Saberevski since.

He was a mystery to me when I knew him; he remains a mystery still.

But the greatest mystery of all is love.