She pressed his hand in both of hers, looking fervently into his uncouth and martial visage.
“Thanks,” she replied, speaking in French. “You fill me with gratitude. I accept for him the great and noble tribute of your love. It is, as you say, his right, for he belonged to the Legion of Honor. He was a soldier of the Guard—the old Guard which dies; but never surrenders!”
The dark eye blazed as he took in the proud significance of her words, and silent with emotion, he bowed, and retired.
Two hours later, and, the burial over, they stood in the green and tender sunlit shadows of Mount Auburn. A still peace filled the sweet sequestered shades. The birds sang in the murmuring leaves; the soft warm odors of the flowers and greenery breathed around them; the blue June sky was cloudless and calm; and the descending sunlight shone sweetly on the quiet graves.
For a little while after the others were gone, Muriel and Wentworth lingered looking at the gentle light which floated with the shadows of the oak-leaves overhead, on the new-made mound.
“It is all over,” said Wentworth mournfully. “Alas! I never thought I would stand by his grave! He realized the noblest dreams of chivalry—he was the last grand chevalier—and he is gone. What is left us now!”
“Memories,” she calmly answered, “memories of a life of love. Love beat through all his life, love nerved him in the strife in which he fell. He smote like Socrates at Delium—like the divine old Greek who clove his country’s foe, and blessed him as he died. So smote he with stern love, and in all the wealth of memories he leaves me, that memory too, is mine. Sweet memories, I treasure you in my heart of hearts! Sweet blossoms of True Love, I fold you all. Stern blossom of True Love, I fold you too.”
He gazed with mournful tenderness at her noble features, which were lit with a brilliant and fervent smile.
“True Love, indeed!” he answered. “Who but he could leave his beautiful Muriel, his adored wife, and go away to die for one of the lowliest of God’s creatures! Ah, were there a thousand such as he, this land would be purged of every wrong! But he was alone in nobleness.”
“No, not alone,” she said with sudden spirit. “Not alone. This is America—America, forming and emerging, with martyrs and heroes such as no land has seen. The Greek could die for freemen; but when died he for the helot? Oh, I see the heroes of all lands and times! They live and die for country, for ideas, for religions, but in America they live and die for man. Land of Lovejoy’s grave, land of Torrey’s grave, land of the graves obscure and countless, graves of the lovers for whose love the lowest was not too low, I read your golden augury! You prophecy the future; you herald the America uprising—the beautiful divine land of lovers and of friends! Shall it not come? Oh, graves of all who die that it may be, answer, answer, answer!”