Indeed for many years I
have looked upon you as my husband, though I thought you dead.'
'Perhaps it is more than I deserve,' I said. 'But if it is to be, say
when it shall be, for youth has left us and we have little time to
lose.'
'When you will, Thomas,' she answered, placing her hand in mine.
Within a week from that evening we were wed.
And now my tale is done. God who gave me so sad and troublous a youth
and early manhood, has blessed me beyond measure in my middle age and
eld. All these events of which I have written at such length were done
with many a day ago: the hornbeam sapling that I set beneath these
windows in the year when we were married is now a goodly tree of shade
and still I live to look on it. Here in the happy valley of the Waveney,
save for my bitter memories and that longing for the dead which no time
can so much as dull, year after year has rolled over my silvering hairs
in perfect health and peace and rest, and year by year have I rejoiced
more deeply in the true love of a wife such as few have known. For
it would seem as though the heart-ache and despair of youth had but
sweetened that most noble nature till it grew well nigh divine. But one
sorrow came to us, the death of our infant child--for it was fated that
I should die childless--and in that sorrow, as I have told, Lily shewed
that she was still a woman.
Pages:
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560