She yearned to bury her sorrow. It was not a healthy, wholesome thing for any young woman to foster. She had enjoyed her day of love, yes—her years of love. She had felt like a widowed bride. To her, Adam’s kisses had been like the first sacred emblems of their marriage. She had not been able to conceive of permitting such caresses until she should feel that their souls were mated and their hearts already wedded. But it could never be the duty of a woman to mourn such a loss till she died. And then—this newly contemplated union would make her forget.
But, if she could encourage Henry toward this possibility of a union such as she thought upon, it would be her duty to be more cheerful, more living in the every-day hours that were, instead of dreaming sadly and morbidly upon her heart-break of the past.
It was not with a sense of gratifying her own longing for happiness that she finally thought a marriage with Henry possible; there was a sense of combating her own selfishness in it. It was a selfishness, it was pampering the morbid in her nature, she felt, to continue indefinitely in a “widowhood” of Adam’s love. It must also be admitted that Garde was human, wherefore the element of pique was not absolutely lacking in her being. No woman would ever wish a man she had rejected to believe that she could not, or would not, marry elsewhere. She would wish to show that other opportunities were not lacking, as well as she would desire to have him know that her heart was not broken beyond repair.
Having spent at least a month upon these introspective and other meditations, Garde appeared to Wainsworth so much more bright and beautiful that there was no containing his emotions. The poor fellow nearly broke his neck, metaphorically speaking, in a vain attempt to ask her to become his wife, on the first occasion afforded, after he made his discovery of her alteration in moods and appearance.
It was of no use to screw up his courage. It would not stick. He determined to write what he could not utter, and then, when a moment should be propitious, to deliver his written declaration into her hand, to be read when he had fled the scene. To this end he composed an elegant and eloquent epistle.
To avoid any possibility of making mistakes, Henry carefully deposited his letter in the pocket of the coat he always wore to Meeting. This pocket had been heretofore employed as a receptacle for things precious over which he desired to exercise particular care.
Having without difficulty obtained permission from Garde to walk at her side to church and back, poor Wainsworth lost appetite and sleep, while waiting for the fateful day. When it came, he was in a nervous plight which revealed to Garde the whole state of his mind. She felt her sympathy for him expand in her bosom till she hoped it would burgeon into love. Had he gone with her into her aunt Gertrude’s home, after the service, Garde would doubtless have helped to simplify what she was well aware he wished to say, but, alas for the timid lover, he dared not, on this occasion, so jeopardize his courage.
He knew that if ever he got inside the house and faced her, alone, he would not be able even to deliver his letter. But out of doors his nerve was steadier. Therefore, at the gate having fortified himself against the moment, he nervously drew from his pocket a good-sized packet of paper and put it shakingly into her hand.
“I wish—I wish you would read—this letter,” he stammered. “Good-by. I—I hope you will read it quite through.”
Garde looked at him compassionately. He was only made the more confused. He bowed himself away with a nervousness painful to see.