“Oh, nothing. I suppose it is nothing to remind me how cruel I have been to him. Oh no, nothing at all. And all this from you”.
In a storm of sobs she fell upon Jeremy Wattleʼs tombstone, and Cradock put one arm around her, to prevent her being hurt.
“Amy, you drive me wild. I have brought it to you only because it is yours, and because I am going away”.
“Cradock, it never was mine. I refused it months ago; and I believe he gave it—you know what he was, poor dear—I believe he transferred it, and something else—oh no, I canʼt express myself—to—just to somebody else”.
“Oh, you darling! and who was that other? What a fool he must have been! Confound it, I never meant that”.
“I donʼt know, Cradock. Oh, please keep away. But I think it was Pearl Garnet. Oh, Cradock, dear Cradock, how dare you? No, I wonʼt. Yes, I will, Crad; considering all your misery”.
She put up her pure lips in the moonlight—for Cradock had got her in both arms by this time, and was listening to no reason—her sweet lips, pledged once pledged for ever, she put them up in her love and pity, and let him do what he liked with them. And the moon, attesting a thousand seals hourly, never witnessed one more binding.
After all, Cradock Nowell, so tried of Heaven, so scourged with the bitterest rods of despair, your black web of life is inwoven now with one bright thread of gold. The purest, the sweetest, the loveliest girl that ever spun happiness out of sorrow, or smiled through the veil of affliction, the truest and dearest of all Godʼs children, loving all things, hating none, pours into your heart for ever all that fount of love. Freed henceforth from doubt and wonder (except at her own happiness), enfranchised of another world, enriched beyond commercial thoughts, ennobled beyond self, she blushed as she spoke, and grew pale as she thought, and who shall say which was more beautiful? Cradock could tell, perhaps, if any one can; but he only knew that he worshipped her. And to see the way she cried with joy, and how her young bosom panted; it was enough to warm old Jeremy Wattle, dead and buried nigh fourscore years.
Cradock, all abroad himself, full of her existence, tasting, feeling, thinking nothing, except of her deliciousness, drew his own love round to the light to photograph her for ever. Poor Clayton was dead; else Crad would have thought that he deserved to be so, for going away to Pearl Garnet: but then the grapes were sour. How he revelled in that reflection! And yet it was very wrong of him.