en is of
its own nature, and not of the body alone--it is inscrutable as death,
and everlasting as the heavens.

Yes, the fiat has gone forth; for good or for evil, for comfort or for
scorn, for the world and for eternity, he loves her! Henceforth that
love, so lightly and yet so irredeemably given, will become the
guiding spirit of his inner life, rough-hewing his destinies,
directing his ends, and shooting its memories and hopes through the
whole fabric of his being like an interwoven thread of gold. He may
sin against it, but he can never forget it; other interests and ties
may overlay it, but they cannot extinguish it; he may drown its
fragrance in voluptuous scents, but, when these have satiated and
become hateful, it will re-arise, pure and sweet as ever. Time or
separation cannot destroy it--for it is immortal; use cannot stale it,
pain can only sanctify it. It will be to him as a beacon-light to the
sea-worn mariner that tells of home and peace upon the shore, as a
rainbow-promise set upon the sky. It alone of all things pertaining to
him will defy the attacks of the consuming years, and when, old and
withered, he lays him down to die, it will at last present itself
before his glazing eyes, an embodied joy, clad in shining robes, and
breathing the airs of Paradise!

For such is love to those to whom it has been given to see him face to
face.

CHAPTER XX

Arthur did not do much fishing that morning; indeed, he never so much
as got his line into the water--he simply sat there lost in dreams,
and hoping in a vague way that Angela would come back again. But she
did not come back, though it would be difficult to say what prevented
her; for, had he but known it, she was for the space of a full hour
sitting within a hundred yards of him, and occasionally peeping out to
watch his mode of fishing with some curiosity. It was, she reflected,
exceedingly unlike that practised by Jakes. She, too, was wishing that
he would detect her, and come to talk to her; but, amongst other new
sensations, she was now the victim of a most unaccountable shyness,
and could not make up her mind to reveal her whereabouts.

At last Arthur awoke from his long reverie, and remembered with a
sudden pang that he had had nothing to eat since the previous evening,
and that he was consequently exceedingly hungry. He also discovered,
on consulting his watch, that it was twelve o'clock, and, moreover,
that he wa