“Yes, Lawrence, I have loved as few have ever loved, and for that love I am dying long before my time. It began years and years ago, when I was a little boy, and in looking over my past life, I can scarcely recall a single hour which was not associated with some thought of the brown-haired girl who crept each day more and more into my heart, until she became a part of my very being.”
Lawrence started, and grasping the hand lying outside the counterpane, said:
“My Mildred, Oliver! I never dreamed of this.”
“Yes, your wife,” Oliver whispered, faintly. “Forgive me, Lawrence, for I couldn’t help it, when I saw her so bright, so beautiful, so like a dancing sunbeam. She was a merry little creature, and even the sound of her voice stirred my very heartstrings when I was a boy. Then, when we both were older, and I awoke to the nature of my feelings toward her, I many a time laid down upon the grass in the woods out yonder, and prayed that I might die, for I knew how worse than hopeless was my love. Oh, how I loathed myself!—how I hated my deformity, sickening at the thought of starry-eyed Mildred wasting her regal beauty on such as me. At last there came a day when I saw a shadow on her brow, and with her head in my lap, she told me of her love for you, while I compelled myself to hear, though every word burned into my soul. You know the events which followed, but you do not know the fierce struggle it has cost me to keep from her a knowledge of my love. But I succeeded, and she has never suspected how often my heart has been wrung with anguish when in her artless way she talked to me of you, and wished I could love somebody, so as to know, just what it was. Oh, Lawrence! that was the bitterest drop of all in the cup I had to drain. Love somebody!—ah me, never human being worshipped another as I have worshipped Mildred Howell; and after I’m dead, you may tell her how the cripple loved her, but not till then, for Lawrence, when I die, it must be with my head on Mildred’s shoulder. Hers must be the last face I look upon, the last voice I listen to. Shall it be so? May she come? Tell me yes, for I have given my life for her.”
“Yes, yes,” answered Lawrence, “she shall surely come,” and he pressed the poor hands of him who was indeed dying for Mildred Howell.
Twenty-four hours had passed, and again the October moon looked into the chamber where Oliver lay dying. All in vain the cool night wind moved his light-brown hair, or fanned his feverish brow where the perspiration was standing so thickly. All in vain were Hepsy’s groans and the Judge’s whispered words, “Pity, pity, and he so young.” All in vain the deep concern of Richard Howell and Lawrence, for nothing had power to save him, not even the beautiful creature who had pillowed his head upon her arm and who often bent down to kiss the lips, which smiled a happy smile and whispered:
“Dear, dear Mildred.”
“Let my head sink lower,” he said at last; “so I can look into your eyes.”
Very carefully Lawrence Thornton adjusted the weary head, laying it more upon the lap of his young bride, and whispering to Oliver: