What does it avail to tell in words how these two plighted their troth, that was to be ever unfulfilled? The tenderest and truest of lovers have generally small literary value.
For half an hour they went to heaven together.
Then they faced realities, and Andrew asked: “Will you write to me?”
Mary shook her head. “No; if we write we shall simply waste our lives in everlasting watching for the postman. We are very human, you and I, and how can we hope to be better and wiser than other people?”
“You are hard,” murmured Andrew. “I can find no comfort in virtuous soliloquy. A letter would be something tangible.”
“No, I am not hard; but I am old who once was young, and I know. As it is we shall have a perfect and unspoiled memory, full of tenderness and grace and poetry; but if we write we shall be miserable, ever unsatisfied, hanging, like Mahomet’s coffin, between heaven and earth. No; let us keep this sweet experience untarnished by impotent tears and regrets.”
Three days after, Mary and her boys had joined some of the numerous uncles at a shooting-box near Kingussie. The Duke was very happy; but Wiggins missed his beloved sea. “I think my minister must miss me,” he said. “I miss him so very much; he’s such a kind man.”