"I have told. Husband, forgive me! I know all, and still I love you—I love you!"
I did not say, I pardon. I would not let him think that I felt I had need to pardon.
Laurence sank down at my feet, hid his face on my knees, and wept.
* * * The tale of his youth was as I guessed. He told it me the same night, when we sat in the twilight gloom. I was glad of this—that not even his wife's eyes might scan too closely the pang it cost him to reveal these long-past days. But all the while he spoke my head was on his breast, that he might feel I held my place there still, and that no error, no grief, no shame, could change my love for him, nor make me doubt his own, which I had won.
My task is accomplished. I rested not, day or night, until the right was done. Why should he fear the world's sneer, when his wife stands by him—his wife, who most of all might be thought to shrink from this confession that must be made? But I have given him comfort—ay, courage. I have urged him to do his duty, which is one with mine.
My husband has acknowledged his first marriage, and taken home his son. His mother, though shocked and bewildered at first, rejoiced when she saw the beautiful boy—worthy to be the heir of the Shelmerdines. All are happy in the thought. And I—
I go, but always secretly, to the small daisy-mound. My own lost one! my babe, whose face I never saw! If I have no child on earth, I know there is a little angel waiting me in heaven.
Let no one say I am not happy, as happy as one can be in this world: never was any woman more blessed than I am in my husband and my son—mine. I took him as such: I will fulfill the pledge while I live.