'Oh, Ida! forgiveness is no word to pass between you and me.'
'Especially now, Jerry; but though I treated you ill—very, very ill—in the past time——'
'Let us not talk of that, Ida.'
'Of what, then?'
'Our future,' he whispered, while, drawing near, he took her passive hand in his, and longed to kiss, but dared not touch her, while great love and compassion filled his heart—the love that had never died; but as he held her hand she shivered like an aspen leaf.
'Future—oh, Jerry, I would that I were at rest beside mamma in yonder church!' she said, looking to where the square tower of the village fane, mantled in ivy and snow, stood darkly up in purple shade against the crimson flush of the evening sky.
'Can it be that your illness is such—your weakness—oh, what shall I term it!—is such that you are indeed tired of life, Ida?' he asked, with an anxiety that was not unmixed with fear.
'Life is only a delusion. What is it that we should desire it?'
'You are very strange this evening, dearest Ida,' he urged softly.
'My health is shattered, Jerry—my spirit gone! hence, though you love me, no comfort or joy would ever come to you through me.'