As he said this I think the bitterness of death passed over me; for was he not now quite too late for everything--for the love which I could have given him, for the joy which we might both have shared, had he only come back a little sooner. I almost wished at that bitter moment that he had never returned, that he had really died. The next instant, however, a revulsion came over me, and I found that I was glad, very glad, that he was alive, that he was in the land of the living, that I had a chance of seeing him from time to time.