But Kenelm noted none of these details—he went up to her hurriedly, as though she had been living, and knelt down by her side. He was strong and proud, undemonstrative as are most English gentlemen, but all this deserted him now. He laid his head down on the folded hands and wept aloud.
“My darling! my lost, dear love, so young to die! If I could but have given my life for you!” His hot tears fell on the marble breast. Sir Ronald stood with folded arms, watching him, thinking to himself:
“He loved her best of all—he loved her best!”
For some minutes the deep silence was unbroken save by the deep-drawn, bitter sobs of the unhappy man kneeling there. When the violence of his weeping was exhausted he rose and bent over her.
“She is beautiful in death as she was in life,” he said. “Oh, Clarice, my darling! If I were but lying there in your place. Do you know, Ronald, how and where I saw her last?”
The haggard, silent face was raised in its despairing quiet to him.
“It was three weeks before her wedding day, and I was mad with wounded love and sorrow. I went over to Mount Severn—not to talk to her, Ronald, not to try to induce her to break her faith—only to look at her and bear away with me the memory of her sweet face forever and forever. It is only two years last June. I walked through the grounds, and she was sitting in the center of a group of young girls, her bridesmaids who were to be, her fair hair catching the sunbeams, her lovely face brighter than the morning, the love-light in her eyes; and she was talking of you, Ronald, every word full of music, yet every word pierced my heart with hot pain. I did not go to speak to her, but I stood for an hour watching her face, impressing its glorious young beauty on my mind. I said to myself that I bade her farewell, and the thought came to my mind, ‘How will she look when I see her again?’”
Then he seemed to forget Sir Ronald was present, and he bent again over the beautiful face.
“If you could only look at me once, only unclose those white lips and speak to me, who loves you as I do, my lost darling.”
He took one of the roses from the folded hands and kissed it passionately as he had kissed her lips.