"Yes, thank God; for when I thought that you had forgotten me——"
"Then you did think so?"
"For a time; and it seemed to me as if no more constancy were left on earth; as if it had been sapped and undermined in its very citadel."
"Do not believe that I forgot you for a single hour; or that I can ever forget you. You and I have been joined at least in an equal sorrow and suspense. We have walked through depths together, and drank the same gall and bitterness."
"That one month—four miserable weeks—should have worked all this! One month sooner, and this black picture of our lives would have been bright again as the sunshine. I could believe that some infernal power had taken the reins of our fate."
"Do not say so, nor think so. You have fronted death; you have braved despair; and now bear this blow victoriously as you have borne the rest."
"The crowning blow is the heaviest of all."
"Look into my heart,—if you could look into it,—and see on which of us it has fallen with the more sickening and withering force."
Morton looked into her face. It was like a deep lake becalmed, into which strong springs are boiling up from rocks at the bottom. The surface is still; but looking more closely, one may discern faint gliding undulations and trembling lines, which betray the turmoil below. Morton saw them, and felt their purport.
"I would to God," he said, "I could bear your burden for you."