You understand
this! You feel for me, you do not deride me! You know how perfect, how
spiritual she was! You loved her well--I saw it in your eyes, your
manner--and for that, if nothing else, you have my heart-felt gratitude.
So few appreciated her unearthly purity. Yet, was it not strange she
should have loved a man so gross, so steeped in sensuous, thoughtless
enjoyment--so remote from God as I am--have ever been? But the song
speaks for me"--waving his gauntleted hand--"better than I can speak:
"'Away! away! the chords are mute,
the bond is rent in twain.'"
"I shall never marry again--never! Miss Miriam, I know now, and shall
know evermore, in all its fullness, and weariness, and bitterness, the
meaning of that terrible word--alone! Eternal solitude. The Robinson
Crusoe of society. A sort of social Daniel Boone. 'Thus you must ever
consider me. And yet, just think of it. Miss Harz!"
"Oh, but you will not always feel so; there may come a time of
reaction." I hesitated. It was not my purpose to encourage change.
"No, never! never!" he interrupted, passionately; "don't even suggest
it--don't! and check me sternly if ever I forget my grief again in
frivolity of any sort in your presence. You are a noble, sweet woman,
with breadth enough of character to make allowances for the shortcomings
of a poor, miserable man like me--trying to cheat himself back into
gayety and the interests of life.
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