“Not even death?”
The words were a mere whisper; yet she heard them. It seemed as if a sudden ray of light shone upon the face she turned towards him. He was awed; he watched her in mute silence.
“Ah! no,” she said, very softly, “not death—death least of all. Death can only divide us, it cannot touch our love. Ah! you do not know, you do not understand. How can I make it clear to you? Love is like nothing else in the world—it is us, our very selves. Somewhere——” Monica clasped her hands together, and stretched them out before her towards the eternal ocean, with a gesture more eloquent than any words, whilst the light upon her face deepened in intensity every moment as her eyes fixed themselves upon the far horizon. “Somewhere he is waiting for me to come to him—he, my husband, my love; and though he may not come back to me, I shall go to him in God’s good time, and when I join him in the great, eternal home, I must go to him as he left me—with nothing between us and our love; and there will be no parting there, no more death, and no more sea.”
Her words died away in silence; but her parted lips, her shining eyes, the light upon her face, spoke an eloquent language of their own. Her companion sat and looked at her in mute, breathless silence, not unmixed with awe.
He knew his cause was lost. He knew she could never, never be his; yet, strange to say, he was not saddened or cast down, for by this revelation of her innermost heart he felt himself uplifted and ennobled. His idol was not shattered. Monica was, as ever, enshrined in his heart—the one ideal woman to be worshipped, reverenced, adored. Even in this supreme hour of his life, when the airy fabric of his dreams was crumbling into dust about him, he had a perception that perhaps even thus it was best. He never could be worthy of her, and now he might still call himself her friend; had she not said so herself?
There was a long, long silence between them. Then he moved, kneeling on one knee before her, and taking her hand in his.
“Monica,” he said, “I understand now. I shall never trouble you again. You have judged well, very well; it is like you, and that is enough. But before I go may I crave one boon?”
“And that is——?”
“That you forget all that I have said, all the wild, foolish words that I have spoken; and let me keep my old place—as your brother and friend.”
She looked at him with her own gentle smile.