My darling! You make me as happy as yourself."
"Happy! John, I shall always make you happy now. I shall never grieve or sadden or disappoint you again. Never once again! O my love! O my dear good husband! Love me as only you can love me. Forgive me, John, as God has forgiven me! Make me happy in your love as God has made life glorious to me with His love!"
And for some moments John could not speak. He kissed her rapturously and drew her closer and closer to his side, and he sought her eyes with that promise in his own which she knew instinctively would surround and encompass and adore her with unfailing and undying affection as long as life should last.
In a communion nigh unto heaven they spent the evening together. John had left his letter lying on the ground where he met his white-robed wife. He forgot it, though it was of importance, until he saw it on the ground in the morning. He forgot everything but the miracle that had changed all his water into wine. It seemed as if his house could not contain the joy that had come to it. He threw off all his sadness, as he would have cast away a garment that did not fit him, by a kind of physical movement; and the years in which he had known disappointment and loss of love dropped away from him. For Jane had buried in tenderest words and hopes all the cruel words which had so bitterly wounded
and bereaved and impoverished his life. Jane had promised and God was her surety. He had put into her memory a wondrous secret word. She had heard His voice, and it could never again leave her heart;
And who could murmur or misdoubt,
When God's great sunshine finds them out?
SEQUENCES
There are few episodes in life which break off finally. Life is now so variable, travel so easy, there are no continuing cities and no lasting interests, and we ask ourselves involuntarily, "What will the sequence be?" When I left Yorkshire, I was too young and too ignorant of the ever-changing film of daily existence to think or to care much about sequences; and the Hattons were a family of the soil; they appeared to be as much a part of it as the mountains and elms, the blue bells and the heather. I never expected to see them again and the absence of this expectation made me neither sorry nor glad.