Then he, also, leaves the glistening temple behind him, and goes his way among the down-dropping shrubs and spicy blossoms to his home among the bananas.
Standing on the deck of the steamer, which was to convey him to his long-forsaken home, with his arm around the Venus-like figure of his wife, and his eyes upon the swiftly vanishing roof of the isle, St. Udo Brand, who had spoken but little since repeating the vows which had made his darling by his side his own, now found speech, and half playfully apostrophized the dreamlike scene before him thus:
"Farewell ye coral isles, wherein I found my Pearl and happiness. Blessed be your coraline foundations, your lazy inhabitants, and your fever-breeding climate. You have been to me a world of passion, of hope, of purity. Oh, my Lost Good, who has been sent to me in mercy"—his playful accents changed to the gravity of deep emotion, as he drew yet closer to him his "Perdita"—"I turn to you henceforth to be what you would wish me, and to study your secret of how to live. I have been wandering on the burning sands, and pressing forever onward to reach a glittering lake of the desert, which, ever rippling and vanishing, beckoned me farther from the cool, calm shades of rest. Now I come, a wearied pilgrim to your pure heart, my wife, for you have opened it to let a weary, dusty wanderer in. Your purity, my simple Margaret, reminds me of the immaculate heights of snow-capped Gaurisankar—serene, majestic, while I, a lava-crusted, thunderous, calcined volcano, lashed by the fires of many passions, come to cool my fevered blood by your chill radiance."
"Hush, St. Udo! If you knew how intensely happy I am with my destiny——"
She paused, for her glad eyes were filling fast, her fond tones faltering.
"Oh, my soft-souled Perdita! my simple darling!"
And then sweetly swooped the rush of joy to them, and they were dumb, for some one who has read the human heart says, "The most exquisite of all emotions is utter silence, with a being in whom we feel entire sympathy."
"Ah, par ma foi! but I am the good fairy, after all!" muttered the chevalier, hugging his fancy little self, and pacing about near them, with a protecting air, as if they were his especial proteges. "I feel like Guardian Angel of their fortunes. Saint Ludovic—par la messe, it sounds well!"
"Thank Heaven! Ethel Brand's incomprehensible will has explained itself at last!" mused Davenport, laying down his crumpled Times, "and it has proved itself to be the wisest will ever the Brands made. Married in spite of themselves, and as happy as love can make them in spite of a plain face, on the one side, and a reputation that the dogs wouldn't pick up once, on the other. He's a saved man, and she's a happy woman—dear, faithful Margaret. What glorious news for old Gay."