But, waking, I found you—
“The real woman, whose first touch
Aroused to highest life
My real manhood. Crown it, then,
Good angel, friend, love, wife!”
“Oh, what lovely words and thoughts!” cried Floy, reading them again for the twentieth time; and she added, half in pity for cruel, jealous Maybelle: “How it must have stabbed her heart to read these tender words addressed to me! It must have been punishment enough for all her sin.”
She was right; for what could be more cruel pain to a jealous, envious heart than to read those words of love to another?
“He loves, but ’tis not me he loves,
Not me on whom he ponders,
When in some dream of tenderness