"Only my heart to my heart will show it
As I walk desolate day by day."
He leaned forward and touched the volume:
"Thank you. Give me the book. I should render the concluding verses very much as I heard them recently from my fair client, Mrs. Carew—so."
In his remarkably clear, full, musical and carefully modulated voice he read the two remaining verses, then closed the volume and looked coolly across the table at the girl.
With what a flash her splendid eyes challenged his, and how proudly her tender lips curled, as with pitiless scorn she answered:
"Not so—oh, not so. Jean Ingelow would never recognize her own jewelled handiwork. She meant this, and any earnest woman who prized a faithful lover could not fail to read it aright."
Her eyes sank till they rested on her ring, and slipping it to and fro upon her slender finger till the diamonds sparkled, she repeated with indescribable power and pathos:
"And yet I know, past all doubting, truly,—
A knowledge greater than grief can dim—
I know, as he loved, he will love me duly,
Yea better, e'en better than I love him.
And as I walk by the vast calm river,
The awful river so dread to see,
I say 'Thy breadth and thy depth for ever—
Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me.'"
"Regina, do you interpret that the River of Death?"
She pointed to the jewels on her hand, and the blue eyes cold as steel met his.