There is nothing to remember in me,
Nothing I ever said with a grace,
Nothing I did that you care to see,
Nothing I was that deserves a place
In your mind, now I leave you, set you free.
How strange it were, if you had all me
As I have all you in my heart and brain,
You, whose least word brought gloom or glee,
Who never yet lifted the hand in vain
Will hold mine yet, from over the sea!
James Lee's Wife.
Percivale strolled back alone up the garden path. The night was motionless and heavy. A lethargy seemed to lie on his soul like a weight. To-night he had realized a new thing. He had seen that the wedded bliss he had figured to himself was no dream, but a human possibility, which some attained, but which he had missed. How had he missed it?
Was it possible that he had married the wrong woman?
"Oh, Love, Love, no!" he cried, in his remorse. The fault was his, in some way, of that he was very sure. Had that unknown mother of his lived, she would have been his counsellor, and have shown him where he failed. His deep eyes filled with tears as the thought of that mother beyond the stars came vividly upon his soul. He felt a longing to be comforted—to have his unbroken loneliness scattered and dissipated by tender hands which should draw his weary head down lovingly to rest on a sympathetic breast, and, while telling him what had been his error, whisper consolation.
If there was one thing more than another for which he could not possibly look to his wife, it was for this. Elsa expected him to have his attention always fixed on her and her requirements. The idea that he could ever ail in mind or body never occurred to her.
He stood in the porch of Edge Willoughby, the suffocating sweetness of the verbena-bush, which grew beside the door, suffusing the air all round him. He remembered the night when he stood there with Fowler and Claud, just a year ago, bearing the news of Elsa's innocence.
If he could but charm away this bitter sense of failure!