Edith buried her face, and burst into a flood of weeping.
Grief, mixed with more ardent emotion, wrought with such violence in Morton's breast, that he scarcely restrained his impulse to throw himself at her feet. In a few moments, she raised her head.
"Do not think from this, that I am not resigned to what has fallen on us. It is best. Incomprehensible as it is, it is best for us both."
A passionate denial rose to Morton's lips; but he did not utter it.
"I overrated my strength. I am weaker than I hoped to have found myself. You wish to bear my burden! You have had enough to bear of your own, Vassall; but with you, endurance is not the whole. You still have youth, health, vigor. To one of your instincts, the world has noble tasks enough. With a heart steeled by dangers, refined by sufferings, tempered in fires of anguish, what path need you fear to tread? Forget the past;—no, do not forget it; only forget all in it that may damp your courage or weaken your hand. When I knew you first, you were full of zeal in a worthy and generous enterprise. Cling to it still. Let me see the tree which I knew in its blossoming bear a full fruit at maturity. Let me see the ardent and earnest spirit which I knew in the beginning, not quelled or flagging by the way, but holding on its course to the end. The pure chivalry of your heart which constrained me to love you, the instinct which turned towards honor and nobleness as a tree turns its branches to the sun,—do not part from it; keep it unstained for my sake, and let it brighten and strengthen all your life."
"If preachers could speak with your tongue," exclaimed Morton, "the world would forget itself and grow virtuous. The love that I have lost on earth I will set among the stars. It shall be my beacon till the day I die."
"We are too delicate and timorous to bear a part in the active struggles of life; but it is a woman's office to raise and purify the thoughts of those who do. You, whose strong natures are formed for warfare, cannot be so sensitive as we are to every spot that dims the brightness of your armor. It is easy for me, before one whom I have loved as I have loved you, to hold this tone, and be borne up for a time above the thought of grief and renouncement. But it is a different task to still, through all a lifetime, the longings of a woman's heart, and the impatient surgings of a woman's temperament. This is the task assigned me, and I accept it. Life—action—are before you. Patience is my medicine; the slow talisman which must open in the end my door of promise."
Morton pressed her hand to his lips.
"'There is some soul of goodness in things evil.' A sorrow under which, feebly borne, the mind would wither to the earth, borne well will lift it above the clouds. Do not believe that I have deceived any one. He knows on what terms he takes me. I feel respect, esteem, confidence, warm friendship for him."
"May you never be undeceived," thought Morton to himself.