"Must we take it up as before, Medoline? I have found I cannot be satisfied with your friendship only?"

"I do not understand you."

"You drove me away, and you have forced me to return--must I leave again?

I cannot remain near you any longer with our relation to each other unchanged. I must have your love or nothing. Friendship between us, and nothing more, is out of the question. Can you not learn to love me, Medoline?"

I turned and placed both my hands in his.

"Does this mean love instead of fear? Remember you told me not long ago you were afraid of me; answer me truly, little one; do hand and heart go together?"

"If you care to have them," I murmured softly, "but, have you forgotten Mrs. Le Grande?"

"Long ago I ceased to think of her, only as one may remember a brief surrender to an ign.o.ble pa.s.sion. The mistake I made was in measuring womanhood generally by her standard--you have taught me, my darling, that angels have not yet ceased to visit our poor earth."

"Oh, Mr. Winthrop, you must not go to the other extreme or I shall soon disappoint you."

"You are all I could wish, Medoline. If it were possible I would not ask any change in mind or body, my Eve--fresh from the hand of G.o.d."

His words frightened me; for how could I ever fulfill his expectations?

He read my face.

"Are you sure, Medoline, you love me as I want to be loved by my wife?

Have you gained your woman's heart with its full capacity for love or suffering, or are you still only a child?"

"I could die for you, Mr. Winthrop, if it were for your good; I do not ask for anything better than to be near you always in time and eternity."

"Since how long have you regarded me in this way, Medoline?"

"You remember that long night holding my hand, when I was at the worst of the fever? I saw everything clearly then. My spirit seemed to get away from the body, or very nearly so, and looked on things as it had never done before."

"Did you wonder after that why I left you so abruptly?"

"For a long time I thought you were still at Oaklands. Every day I used to hope you might come, or send me a message."

"You shall never be so left again till death separates us."

"If you cared for me then, why did you leave me?" I asked timidly.

"If I cared for you then, Medoline! Why don't you ask me when first I began to love you?"

"I did not think to ask."

"Do you remember that day in the autumn when you had the Mill Road people here?"

"Yes."

"You came to me, if you remember, with the widow Lark.u.m's baby in your arms, a very timid, and beseeching look on your face at the same time."

I nodded in reply.

"My heart went out to you then and there, as it never did to any woman.

I had been fascinated and amused with your ways before that. How I have waited and hoped since then to see you turn to me with the love-light in your eyes! Fear lest I might lose my self-restraint and speak too soon, drove me from you--fear lest some other man would win what I so pa.s.sionately craved has brought me back. Darling, you have made this the happiest day of my life."

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE END.

I never saw Mrs. Le Grande again alive. The following morning I made my confession to Mr. Winthrop, and got his consent to continue my visits to the sick room, at Rose Cottage, until recovery or death should take place. My one anxiety as I walked along the field and woodland that day, was lest my face might reveal to her keen vision the gladness that thrilled all my pulses. I did not wait to ring the bell but went directly to her rooms. The parlor door was closed; when I opened it, at the farther end of the room I was startled to see a white-robed form lying on one of the sofas.

I hesitated with sudden fear, but finally summoning all my resolution I crossed the room and stood beside the clay-cold form of Mrs. Le Grande.

The nurse who was in the adjoining room came to my side and after a few seconds' silence she said, gently:

"I never felt so lonesome with any dying person as with her last night."

"Did she know she was dying?"

"Yes, we told her. It seemed dreadful to let her go before her Maker without a prayer for mercy, but her thoughts, for all we told her, were more about this world than the next. She made her will as soon as the doctor came. We sent for him in haste, and then she told us what to put on her when we prepared her for the coffin. That's the gown she was to have been married in. She said: 'Mr. Winthrop shall see his bride in her wedding dress, at last.'"

I looked at the rich white satin, with its exquisite tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of lace, and the fresh gathered roses instead of orange blossoms.

"Did she say nothing about where her soul was going?" I asked, yet dreading a reply.

"After he'd got the will drawn, the doctor asked her if her business for another world was satisfactorily arranged; but she said the next world would have to wait its turn after she'd got there; she had no strength left to make any more preparations."

I turned away, too sick at heart to listen longer, but the nurse followed me with a message from the dying woman.

"It was her special request that you and Mr. Winthrop should come to her funeral, and afterward be present at the reading of the will. I am not at liberty to explain, but I think you will regret it if you do not come.

She said that was to be the sign of reconciliation between her and Mr.

Winthrop."

"I will deliver the message, and, if possible, prevail on him to come,"

I promised, and then hastily left the house. When I reached home I went directly to the library where I found Mr. Winthrop. He looked surprised to see me back so soon, and then, noticing traces of tears on my face, said:

"What is wrong, little one?"

"Mrs. Le Grande died sometime during the night. The nurse told me she showed no anxiety respecting her future state."

He was silent. At last I said: "You have forgiven her, Mr. Winthrop?"

"Forgiven her! Yes, Medoline; and if she had lived, I could never have repaid her for the lesson she taught me, and the favor she conferred on me by going away so abruptly."

"Then you will grant her last request that we should both attend her funeral, and the reading of her will. I have an impression she has left each of us some keepsake, as a token of her repentance."

"Don't you think, little one, that would be a mercenary motive to take us there?"