"How noble and heroic you were—"
"You know all that happened after."
"And in your anxiety to save me from myself, you would not even let me thank you. And when I slept, you stole away."
"What could I do. Julia? I had saved you, I had redeemed myself; and found a calm, cold peace and joy in which I could go. In view of what had happened between us before, how hard and embarrassing for you to meet and thank me, and I feared to meet you. It was better that I should go, and with one stolen look at your sweet, sleeping face, I went."
"Arthur, my poor best will I do to repay you for all your pain and anguish."
"Am I not more than repaid, proud and happy? It was for the best. I needed to suffer and work; and yet how blessed to have carried the knowledge of your love with me!"
"Oh, I wanted to whisper it to you, to have you know; and I was unhappy because I knew you were," she murmured.
"My poor letter in answer to yours I fear was rude and proud and unmanly. What could I say? The possibility that I could be more than a friend to you never occurred to me, and when Ida tried to persuade me that you did love me, her efforts were vain; I could hardly induce her to abandon the idea of writing you."
"There is a blessed Providence in it all, Arthur; and in nothing more blessed than in bringing us together here, where we could meet and speak, with only the sunshine and this bright stream for witnesses."
"And what a sweet little story of love and hope and joy it carries murmuring along!" said Bart, struck with the poetry of her figure.