Were my heart less wholly enlisted
in this matter, my reason and sense of right would rebel. Here, then,
for the present at least, we must say farewell." And so, with many a
heart-ache and many a pang, he went away.
As true love always grows with passing time, so his increased with the
days, and intensified by the cruel heat which was poured upon it. He
realized the torture to which, in a thousand ways, this darling of his
heart had for a lifetime been subjected; and his tenderness and love--in
which was an element of indignation and pathos--deepened with every
fresh revelation of the passing hours. When he came back to her he had
few words to speak, and no airy grace of sentence or caress to bestow;
he followed her about in a curious, shadow-like way, with such a strain
on his heart as made him many a time lift his hand to it, as if to check
physical pain. For her, she was as one who had found a beloved master,
able and willing to lighten all her burdens; a physician, whose
slightest touch brought balm and healing to every aching wound. And so
these two when the time came, spite of the absence of friends who should
have been there, spite of warnings and denunciations and evil
prophecies, stood up and said to those who listened what their hearts
had long before confessed, that they were one for time and eternity;
then, hand in hand, went out into the world.
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