“Well, my love?”
“Whenever you can’t come to see me, will you write to me? I want you to send me, at least once every day, a dear, kind, affectionate letter, full of love; won’t you, dear?”
“I will, if you will promise faithfully to burn them,” replied Julius, as his prudent mind grasped the possibility of some unfortunate future misunderstanding, in which ardent love-letters might have a damaging effect upon the case of the defendant. “That is, pretty nearly every day.”
“Thus far,” continued Leonie, “I have kept all that you have written. I have read them over, and over, and over, and kissed them again and again. The sweet verses you have sent to me I have learned by heart.”
“Have you, darling?” said Mr. Weems, with a feeling of pride in his success as a poet.
“Shall I repeat them to you?”
“If you will, dearest,” replied Mr. Weems, with the air of a man who was conscious that he had turned off rather a good thing in the way of verses.
“Let me see,” said Leonie, leaning back in her chair, “how do they begin? Oh, yes!”
‘Sweetheart, if I could surely choose
The aptest word in passion’s speech,
And all its subtlest meaning use
With eloquence, your soul to teach,
Still, forced by its intensity,
Sweetheart, my love would voiceless be.
‘Sweetheart, though all the days and hours
Sped by, with love in sharpest stress,
To find some reach of human powers
Its faintest impulse to express;
Till Time merged in Eternity,
Sweetheart, my love would voiceless be.’