"I could hear the deep breathing of my husband in the next room, and this made me restless. But for him those words, meaningless in themselves perhaps, would have taken life and force. Ah, why is youth and ambition so rash. Had I only waited before these golden fetters were riveted upon me!
"A vase of moss-roses stood upon the little table near my bed. He had gathered them for me just as the sun was setting, while the first dew bathed them. I took some of these flowers together in my hands, and kissed away their perfume, with a delightful consciousness that he had given it to me. Out of all the wilderness of flowers, now fresh from the dew, these were the gems, for he had brought them to me.
"When daylight came, I arose and went down to the veranda, not weary from sleeplessness, but with a gentle languor upon me which was better than rest. For the first time since Lawrence had been with us, I opened the book he had written, and read passages from it at random. How beautiful they were! and I not discover this before. The truth is, their very excellence carried with it exaltation.
"I read them with a new sense and a keener relish. Their very intensity had, at the first reading, disturbed me almost painfully, now each sentence brought thrills of appreciation. In all respects it was a new book to me.
"I felt that this second reading was dangerous, but the thoughts fascinated me, and I read on, while orioles and mocking-birds held a carnival of music in the thickets around me, and a bright sun drove all the rose-tints from the sky. All at once I looked up, a shadow had fallen across the page I was reading; I closed the book at once, blushing like a guilty creature.
"'Confess,' said Lawrence, with a gleam of laughing triumph in his eyes, 'that you have in some degree changed your opinion.'
"'I have no opinion to change,' was my answer; 'for until now I never really understood your book.'
"'And you understand it now?'
"'Yes.'
"'And feel it?'