too,
that if this honor was in any way to be considered a _reward_, the
needful part was wanting--you were not there! Yet you _were_ there,
you have written me; ah! but not _Rosalie, my wife_, the woman I
loved better than _all_ on earth--the _acknowledged_ woman, her
whose memory I have borne about with me till it was a needful part
of my existence. You were by when the people came to see me
consecrated--and I obeyed your call; I saw _you_ when the people
anointed you with the tears of their admiration and praise. If you
read my heart at all, to-day, you _knew_ how I had suffered--you
_saw_ that I had grown old in sorrow. Was I mistaken to-night in the
thought that you, too, had not been unmindful of _our_ past; that
you were not satisfied with the popular applause; that you, also,
have been lonely, that you have wept; that you have trodden in the
path of duty with weariness?

"There is but one barrier now in the wide world that shall interpose
between us--Rosalie, it is your own will. If I was ever anything to
you, I beseech you think calmly before you answer, and do not let
your triumph, to-night, blind you to the fact which you once
recognised, which can make us happy _yet_. I trust you as in our
younger days; nothing, nothing but your own words could convince me
that you are not worthy to take the highest place among the ladies
of this land. Oh, let the remembrance that I have been faithful to
you through all the past, plead for me, if your pride should rise
up, to condemn me. Let me come and plead _with_ you, for I know not
what I write."

The answer returned to this letter was as follows:--

"I learned long ago, the bar that prevented our union; it is in
existence still, Duncan. Your mother only shall decide if it be
insurmountable. I have never, even for a moment, doubted your
faithfulness; and it has been to me an unspeakable comfort to _know_
that none had supplanted me in your affections. In the temptations,
and struggles, and hardships, I have known, it has kept me above and
beyond the world, and if the last night's triumph proves to be but
the opening of a new life for me on earth, the recollection of what
you are, and that you care for me, will prove a rock of defence, and
a stronghold of hope always. Severed from, or united with you, I am
yours for ever."

Seven days after there was a marriage in the little church of that
remote village, where Duncan Melville and Rosalie Sherwood passed
their child