But when
I knew that no other man had right to you or ever had had right, why
then I found that nothing had slain my love, nor ever could. And Mora,
now you know that I am free, is your love dead?"
She clasped her hands over the cross at her breast. His voice held a
deep passion of appeal; yet he strove, loyally, to keep it calm.
"Listen, Hugh," she said. "If, thinking me faithless, you had turned
for consolation to another; if, though you brought her but your second
best, you yet had won and wed her; now, finding after all that I had
not wedded Humphry, would you leave your bride, and try to wake again
your love for me?"
"You seek to place me," he said, "in straits in which, by mine own act,
I shall never be. Loving you as I love you, I could wed no other while
you live."
She paled, but persisted.
"But, _if_, Hugh? _If_?"
"Then, no," he said. "I should not leave one I had wed. But----"
"Hugh," she said, "thinking you faithless, I took the holy vows which
wedded me to Heaven. How can I leave my heavenly Bridegroom, for love
of any man upon this earth?"
"Not 'any man,'" he answered; "but your betrothed, returned to claim
you; the man to whom you said as parting words: 'Maid or wife, I am all
thine own; thine and none other's forever.' Ah, that brings the warm
blood to thy cheek! Oh, my Heart's Life, if it was true then, it is
true still! God is not a man that he should lie, or rob another of his
bride.
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