ll seem strange to you, like all my
feelings--that I have had a great share in something great, that
without me he wouldn't have been what he was, that I gave as well as
took, and brought my part into the common stock. We did odd things,
he and I in our partnership, things never to be told. My poor cheeks
burn still, and you remember that I cried. But we did great things
too, he and I, and at the end we were for a little while together in
heart. It wouldn't have lasted? Perhaps not. As it was it lasted
long enough--till 'it came', as he said, and he died asking me to
tell him that he had spoken well. I'm very glad he knew that I
thought he had spoken well.

So out of this rambling letter comes the end of it. Be kind to me,
be my friend, and be somebody else's lover, dear Weston. For I am
spoilt for you. 'Her mad folly'--that was what you thought it. Well,
it isn't ended, not even death has ended it. He reaches me still
from where he is--Ah, and what is he doing? I can't think of him
doing nothing. Shall I hear of all he's done some day? Will he tell
me himself, and watch my lips and my eyes as I listen to him? I
don't know. These are dreams, and perhaps I wouldn't have them come
true; for he might do dreadful things again. But I can't marry you.
For to me he is not dead, he lives still, and I am his. I can as
little say whether I like it as I could while he was here. But now,
as then, it is so; whether I like it is little; it is what has come
to me, my lot, my place, my fate, the end of me, the first and last
word about me. And--yes--I am content to have it so. He loved me
very much, and he was a very great man. You'll wonder again, but I'm
a proud woman among women, Weston dear. Goodbye."

Dick Benyon laid down the letter, and pushed it back to Weston Marchmont.

"Yes, I see," said he.

TURNBULL AND SPEARS. PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Quisante, by Anthony Hope

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