"I could not sleep. Excitement kept me wakeful and restless. I heard the measured tread of the sentinel walking his 'lonely round,' and it did not sound louder than the beating of my own heart. Hark! a soft, breezy sound steals up just beneath my window. It is the vibration of the guitar,—a deeptoned, melodious voice accompanies it. It is the voice of St. James. He sings, and the strains fall upon the stilly night, soft as the silver dew.
"Gabriella, I told you with my dying lips never to unseal this manuscript till you were awakened to woman's destiny,—love. If you do not sympathize with my emotions, lay it down, my child, the hour is not yet come. If you have never heard a voice, whose faintest tones sink into the lowest depths of your soul,—if you have never met a glance, whose lightning rays penetrate to the innermost recesses of the heart, reseal these pages. The feelings with which you cannot sympathize will seem weakness and folly, and a daughter must not scorn a mother's bosom record.
"Remember how lonely, how unfriended I was. The only eye that had beamed on me with love was closed in death, the only living person on whom I had any claims was cruel and unkind. Blame me not that I listened to a stranger's accents, that I received his image into my heart, that I enthroned it there, and paid homage to the kingly guest.
"It is in vain to linger thus. I met him again and again. I learned to measure time and space by one line—where he was, and where he was not. I learned to bear harshness, jeering, and wrong, because a door of escape was opened, and the roses of paradise seemed blushing beyond. I suffered him to be my friend—lover—husband."
I dropped the manuscript that I might clasp my hands in an ecstasy of gratitude—
"My God,—I thank thee!" I exclaimed, sinking on my knees, and repeating the emphatic words: "friend—lover-husband." "God of my mother, forgive my dark misgivings."
Now I could look up. Now I could hold the paper with a firm hand. There was nothing in store that I could not bear to hear, no misfortune I had not courage to meet. Alas! alas!
CHAPTER XXIV.
"Yes," continued my mother; "we were married within heaven dedicated walls by a man of God, and the blessing of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity was pronounced upon our union. Remember this, my dearly beloved child, remember that in the bosom of the church, surrounded by all the solemnities of religion, with the golden ring, the uttered vow, and on bended knee, I was wedded to Henry Gabriel St. James.