"I was mad with pain. Forgive me for my anger," he answered sadly, and added: "Permit me to refer to the past just once, and no more forever."
She bowed with drooping lashes, and he continued in a voice that was freighted with deep emotion:
"At that time, Precious, I was mad for your love, and friendship seemed so poor and tame beside it that I would have counted it as of little worth. But how times change!"
He drew a long, quivering breath, and continued:
"We have put the past behind us. You, they tell me, are to be another man's wife. I am to be your sister's husband. You will be my sister, and something within me yearns for your friendship. Next to love it is the sweetest, purest emotion of life. Like the edelweiss growing on the high, pure altitudes of the Alps, the rare white flower of friendship can only bloom in imperishable beauty in the congenial soil of a noble nature. Will you grant me this great boon, Precious—your life-long friendship?"
The eager, dark-gray eyes looked at her pleadingly, but their light was almost holy as he prayed for this place in her heart and life, to be remembered as a faithful friend rather than a disappointed lover.
"A place in thy memory, dearest,
Is all that I claim;
To pause and look back when thou hearest
The sound of my name.
Another may woo thee nearer,
Another may win and wear;
Although he may be the dearer,
Let me be remembered there!
"Remember me not as a lover
Whose hopes have been crossed,
Whose bosom may never recover
The light it hath lost.
As a young bride remembers the mother
She loves, but may never more see,
As a sister remembers a brother,
Oh, dearest, remember me!
"Could I be thy true lover, dearest,
Couldst thou smile on me,
I would be the fondest and dearest
That ever loved thee!
But a cloud on my pathway is glooming
That never must burst upon thine;
And Heaven that made thee all blooming
Ne'er made thee to wither on mine!"
Something like these beautiful, holy thoughts beamed in Lord Chester's eyes and thrilled in his voice as he spoke to Precious, and melted her heart to responsiveness. Deeply moved she held out her little hand to him, and he clasped it warmly in his own.