“A stranger now, but not a stranger once,” it said in tones that thrilled him. “Richard, dear Richard, lost through so many years, my name—”
He cried out her name, “Mary,” and she held him in her arms, and his head lay on her bosom.
“I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard. These are not Mary Marshall’s lips that speak. I have another name.”
She was married.
“I have another name, Richard. Did you ever hear it?”
“Never!”
He looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the smile upon it through her tears.
“Think again, Richard. Are you sure you never heard my altered name?”
“Never!”
“Don’t move your head to look at me, dear Richard. Let it lie here, while I tell my story. I loved a generous, noble man; loved him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully, devotedly; loved him without hope of return; loved him, knowing nothing of his highest qualities—not even knowing that he was alive. He was a brave soldier. He was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands, when the mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me that in all his triumphs he had never forgotten me. He was wounded in a great battle. He was brought, dying, here, into Brussels. I came to watch and tend him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the dreariest ends of the earth. When he knew no one else, he knew me. When he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to rest his head where your rests now. When he lay at the point of death, he married me, that he might call me Wife before he died. And the name, my dear love, that I took on that forgotten night—”