"My dearest, my dearest, thank God; my own, my cherished husband, forgive your erring wife."
His face lit with a rare smile, as he looked up into the pale, tear wet, passionately earnest face.
"It is true then what I heard, what has brought me home. You have sought me. But Marian, what if I must tell you I am still poor, poor as when we parted." She shrunk away as though he had hurt her.
"I have deserved that you should say this to me," she said in a stifled voice, "I have been the basest of the base in the past—why should you think me other than heartless and mercenary still. But oh, Richard, don't you see—I love you now, so dearly and truly, my husband, that I can never have any life apart from you more. Do not talk to me of poverty—only tell me you will never leave me again." "Never again," he answered, "till death us do part. But Marian, though I am no longer the millionaire you married, I do not return to you quite a beggar. More or less I have retrieved the past, and we can begin life anew almost as luxuriously as we left it off." Her face clouded for a moment.
"Ah! I am sorry. I wanted to atone: how can I now? I have been your wife in the sunshine. I thought to show you what I could be in the shadow, and now all that is at an end. I can never show you how I have repented for—that night."
But Richard Fletcher only smiles a smile of great content. And in the silence that ensues, there comes over the snowy fields the joyful bells of the blessed Christmas morning, and in their hearts both bless God for the new life, that dawns with this holy day.
