In the first year she died, and in another Benjamin had taken to himself a new wife, with merrier eyes and ruddier lips.
My heart leaped within me when I kissed my new sister, but she knew not that my joy was because she was giving me back my love.
Trembling with ecstasy, I took this image from its hiding-place, and for nearly fifty years the flowers beneath it have not withered.
As I stood alone here one night, ere I knew he had entered, my little brother's hand was upon my shoulder. For a moment only he was silent, awe-stricken.
"She was always yours, my brother," he said, presently, in a tremulous whisper. "I did not know until it was too late. She had misunderstood—but God was very merciful," and turning he left her to me.
And still each day I lay fresh flowers at her shrine, cherishing the dart that rends my heart the while, for its testimony to the immortality of my passion.
Do you smile because a trembling old man feasts his failing eyes on a fair woman's face and prates of love and flowers and beauty? Smile if you will, but if you do it is because you, being of the earth, cannot understand.
These things are of the spirit; and palsy and rheumatism and waning strength are of the flesh, which profiteth nothing.