“Then let it be so. The storm does not fright you?”
“The storm does not fright me.”
She took from her throat the tuberoses she had worn that day, and gazed at them sadly.
“I can never wear another,” she said. “These are faded like our happy days.”
“You speak but sadly,” returned her husband, with a look of such fondness that the tears started into her eyes despite all her efforts to restrain them. “You would have spoken so had you been bidding me farewell. The destruction of the flower makes you downcast. Mayhap there is still life in the root, and it may be made once more to grow and bloom.”
“John,” his wife said abruptly, “John, I have loved you from the first moment I saw you; I love you now, and I shall love you to all eternity. Whatever happens, remember that and believe it.”
“I have never doubted that you love me,” he answered, gathering her into his arms; “how else could it be that you could have made me so utterly happy?”
She clung to him passionately a moment. Then with an evident effort at self-control, she kissed his lips fervently, disengaged herself from his embrace, and turned away.
“Good-night, dear,” she said.
Then upon the threshold of Mistress Henshaw’s chamber she paused and looked back, tears shining in her beautiful dark eyes.