"But fame and fortune are not won so quickly as boys dream, nor is
life as easy to live bravely as it looks in visions. It was nearly
twenty years before they met again. Neither had married. Her people
were dead and she was living alone; and to him the world at last had
opened her doors. She was still beautiful. A gracious, gentle lady,
she had grown; clothed with that soft sweet dignity that Time bestows
upon rare women, rendering them fairer with the years.
"To the man it seemed a miracle. The dream of those early days came
back to him. Surely there was nothing now to separate them. Nothing
had changed but the years, bringing to them both wider sympathies,
calmer, more enduring emotions. She welcomed him again with the old
kind smile, a warmer pressure of the hand; and, allowing a little
time to pass for courtesy's sake, he told her what was the truth:
that he had never ceased to love her, never ceased to keep the vision
of her fair pure face before him, his ideal of all that man could
find of help in womanhood. And her answer, until years later he read
the explanation, remained a mystery to him. She told him that she
loved him, that she had never loved any other man and never should;
that his love, for so long as he chose to give it to her, she should
always prize as the greatest gift of her life. But with that she
prayed him to remain content.
"He thought perhaps it was a touch of woman's pride, of hurt dignity
that he had kept silent so long, not trusting her; that perhaps as
time went by she would change her mind.
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