I had left that untouched, and this very day I had received it with the right to read it. Such a clear proof of the reward of virtue strengthened my conscience. "This barrier also will some day fall away, if only I have patience, and we shall have nothing with which to reproach ourselves."
Just as I had put out the light and laid my head on the pillow, a gentle rapping startled me. I was on the point of jumping out of bed, when it struck me that the tapping was on the wall just by my head, and I remembered that her bed stood by the same wall. I quickly answered, and she responded, alternately in softer and stronger tones, with the knuckles and the palms. Through all tempos and in different rhythms the telegraph was continued, as if two "rapping spirits" were communicating with one another; and this conversation without words, which expressed clearer than any words could have done our separated nearness, our longing and our hope, left me in a quiet, happy frame of mind.
I knew that on both sides of this wall, which was under no conventual scrutiny, had moved the same moods, feelings, and thoughts,—even if they had not in her taken such a tempting and decided form. This hour seemed to me in a mysterious way to have brought us closer to each other; and while my joy so far had been the consciousness of being allowed to love, I now was overcome by the blessed feeling of being loved, of being myself the object of another's longing and secret wishes.
