"
"I will see no one to-night. Tell Mrs. Kirkland so, with my love."
She ran to the door when the maid and milliner were gone, and locked it,
and then ran back to the fireplace, and flung herself down upon the rug to
read her letter.
"Cherie, when this is handed to you, I shall be sitting in my coach on the
dull Dover road, with frost-clouded windows and a heart heavier than your
leaden skies. Loveliest of women, all things must end; and, despite your
childlike trust in man's virtue, you could scarce hope for eternity to a
bond that was too strong for friendship and too weak for love. Dearest, had
you given yourself that claim upon love and honour which we have talked of,
and which you have ever refused, no lesser power than death should have
parted us. I would have dared all, conquered all, for my dear mistress.
But you would not. It was not for lack of fervid prayers that the statue
remained a statue; but a man cannot go on worshipping a statue for ever. If
the Holy Mother did not sometimes vouchsafe a sign of human feeling, even
good Catholics would have left off kneeling to her image.
"Or, shall I say, rather, that the child remains a child--fresh, and pure,
and innocent, and candid, as in the days when we played our _jeu de volant_
in your grandmother's garden--fit emblem of the light love of our future
years.
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