"Ever since we went to that wedding the other day, I have been wishing it were our own—that you and I might stand together before God's high altar in that little church with the sun streaming in, and be joined, each to the other, until death do us part.
"Sweetheart, can you trust me? Can you believe that it is for always and not just for a little while? Has your mother left her love to you as my father left me his?
"Let me have the sweetness of your leaning on me always, let me take care of you, comfort you when you are tired, laugh with you when you are glad, and love you until death and even after, as he loved her.
"Tell me you care, Barbara, even if it is only a little. Tell me you care, and I can wait, a long, long time.
Roger.
Barbara's heart sang with the joy of the morning. She opened the little worn book, with its yellow, tear-stained pages, and read it all, up to the very last line.
"Oh!" she cried aloud, in pity. "Oh! oh!"
Fully understanding, she put it aside, closing the faded cover reverently on its love and pain. Then she turned to Roger's letter, and read it again.
First Flush of Rapture
Dreaming over it, in the first flush of that mystical rapture which makes the world new for those to whom it comes, as light is recreated with every dawn, she took no heed of the passing hours. She did not know that it was very late, nor that Aunt Miriam, much worried, had asked Roger to go in search of her. She knew only that love and morning and the sea were all hers.