The day of the funeral was one of ghostly gloom. The November wind swept icily over the sea with a dreary wail of winter; the cold rain beat its melancholy drip, drip; sky and earth and sea were all blurred in a clammy mist.
White and wild, Harriet Hunsden hung on her lover's arm while the
Reverend Cyrus Green solemnly read the touching burial service, and
Harold Hunsden was laid to sleep the everlasting sleep.
And then she was going back to the desolate old home—oh, so horribly desolate now! She looked at his empty chamber, at his vacant chair, at his forsaken bed. Her face worked; with a long, anguished cry she flung herself on her lover's breast and wept the rushing, passionate tears of seventeen that keep youthful hearts from breaking.
He held her there as reverently, as tenderly as that dead father might have done, letting her cry her fill, smoothing the glossy hair, kissing the slender hands, calling her by names never to be forgotten.
"My darling—my darling! my bride—my wife!"
She lifted her face at last and looked at him as she never had looked at mortal man before. In that moment he had his infinite reward. She loved him as only these strong-hearted, passionate women can love—once and forever.
"Love me, Everard," she whispered, holding him close. "I have no one in the world now but you."
* * * * *
That night Harrie Hunsden left the old home forever. The Reverend Cyrus drove her to the rectory in the rainy twilight, and still her lover sat by her side, as it was his blissful privilege to sit. She clung to him now, in her new desolation, as she might never have learned to cling in happier times.
The rector's wife received the young girl with open arms, and embraced her with motherly heartiness.