'You have rebuked me, my dearest,' returned Richard, tenderly; 'it is I who have been faithless and a coward. I will accept the charge you have given me; and thank God at the same time for your noble heart.'
So the long-desired gift had come into Richard Lambert's keeping, and the woman he had loved from boyhood had consented to be his wife.
The young master of Kirkleatham ruled well and wisely, and Ethel proved a noble helpmeet. When some years later his father died, and he became vicar of Kirkby Stephen, the parish had reason to bless the strong heart and head, and the munificent hands that were never weary of giving. And 'our vicar' rivalled even the good doctor's popularity.
And what of Olive and Hugh Marsden?
Mildred's words had come true.
There were long lonely years before Hugh Marsden—years of incessant toil and Herculean labour, which should stoop his broad shoulders and streak his dark hair with gray, when men should speak of the noble missionary, Hugh Marsden, and of the incredible work carried forward by him beyond the pale of civilisation.
There was no limit to his endurance, no lack of cheerfulness in his efforts, they said; no labour was too great, no scheme too impracticable, no possibility too remote, for the energies of that arduous soul.
Hugh Marsden only smiled at their praise; he was free and unfettered; he had no wife or child; danger would touch him alone. What should hinder him from undertaking any enterprise in his Master's service? But wherever he went in his lonely hours, or in his long sunshiny converse with others, he ever remained faithful to his memory of Olive; she was still to him the purest ideal of womanhood. At times her face, with its cloudy dark hair and fathomless eyes, would haunt him with strange persistence. Whole lines and passages of her poetry would return to his memory, stirring him with subtle sweetness and vague longings for home.
And Olive, how was it with her during those years of home duty, so patiently, so unselfishly performed? While she achieved her modest fame, and carried it so meekly, had she any remembrance of Hugh Marsden?
'I remember all the more that I try to forget,' she said once when Mildred had put this question to her. 'Now I shall try no more, for I know I cannot forget him.' And again there had been that sadness in her voice. But she never spoke of him voluntarily even to Mildred, but hid in her quiet soul many a secret yearning. They were separated thousands of miles, yet his honest face and voice were often present with her, and never nearer than when she whispered prayers for the friend who had once loved her.