look forward to no future meeting with her that shall be different from that meeting which we are permitted to look forward to with all the good in heaven. If other husbands and wives expect some closer partnership in heaven, I neither expect nor wish it. I have resigned her absolutely and for ever. I do not think that I am morbid. You should know her peculiar character to understand well how I could be made to feel that crystal wall that always stood between us. I felt it so that I really believe, if the children were not demonstrative in their affection for me, I should not have the courage to show any fondness for them. I used, when they were little ones, to look at them sometimes with a kind of terror when I came home, to see if they would smile brightly, and run to me as if they were glad from the heart to see me. I always waited for them, and, thank God! they never failed me. Duty and submission are there, but a perfect affection makes them almost unnecessary.”
Finishing, he glanced for the first time at his companion, and saw that she was in tears.
“My dear friend!” he exclaimed, “how selfish I have been! Forgive me!”
“No,” she replied gently, wiping her eyes, “you are not selfish. It seems to me that you are one of the least selfish of men. I am glad you have confidence enough in me to tell me such a story, which, I can well believe, you seldom or never speak of. It is quite natural that you should confide it to some one, and you could not expect any one to hear it unmoved.”
What an exquisite moonlight covered the world, and made a
fairy-like, silvery day in the little balcony where the two sat! The air sparkled with it, and one tear still hanging to the Signora’s eyelashes shone like a diamond in its beams.
“You are the first person to whom I have ever spoken on this subject, and the only person to whom I could confide it,” Mr. Vane said. “Can you guess why, Signora?”
She looked at him with a startled glance and read his meaning, and, in the first astonishment and confusion, was utterly incapable of replying.
“Shall I tell you why?” he asked.
She rose hastily, blushing and distressed.