“Always?” he repeated. “And yet you kept that love a secret to every soul but your own. It is well, and in order. I could not have known it before. May I ever prove worthy of such devotion, such true love. Arline, our love has not the fire of passion, but a purer flame burns upon its altar, one which consumes not, while it illumines our way.”
For many hours they sat together, much of the time in silence, their souls communing in that language which has not an earthly expression. Soon the current of their lives mingled; the green banks of peace were in view. Night adorned itself in the robes of morning; doubt and questioning gave place to faith and trust.
She went to his home to walk daily with one whom God had made to vibrate in soul to that of her own earnest life. There was no crowd to witness the external rite; only a chosen few who could enter into the true spirit of the occasion, were present, while over them hovered the angelic form of the dear, departed Alice, happy indeed, that a woman's affection and gentleness had come to bless him whom she too so truly loved.
Dawn was radiant with emotion at the union. “Another life now enfolds me,” she said to her father, when they were alone for the first time after the ceremony. “I knew she was coming; I felt it when we came home. You did not seek it, father, it came to you; it was to be; and now as you have some one to sit by your side, I may roam a little, may I not?”
“Ah, yes; I remember a certain pair of eyes over the sea, which more than once flashed on a young lady who shall be nameless.”
Dawn suddenly interrupted this remark by the exclamation, “Ah, don't, father, don't!” and her tone struck him as sadly out of place for the time and occasion; so he said no more, but wondered at her strange, and to him at that moment, unaccountable manner.
“What a peculiar wedding,” said every one; “just like the Wymans, they never do anything like any one else.”
“What he found to admire in Miss Evans, is more than I can see,” said one of the busy-bodies who favored Miss Vernon with a call on a certain memorable morning.
“He's a curious man,” said an old lady, between a yawn and a smile, “and nobody ever could understand him.”
These, and a hundred similar expressions equally unimportant, were heard, and then all was still again.