dear prize; all my battle of life
was fought for you; all my victories were won for you, and were laid at
your feet. But when I found that all my love and hope had brought only
grief and despair to you--then, dear, all my triumphs turned into Dead
Sea fruit on my lips! Then I left all and came into the wilderness; left
no trace behind me; effaced myself from your life, from the world, as
effectually as I could do it; and so--believing it to be for your good
and happiness--died to the world and died to you!"

"Oh, Rule! Miserable woman that I was! I wrecked your life! I wrecked
your career!"

"No, dear, no; the mistake, I said, was mine! I should have trusted your
heart. I should have given you the time you implored; I should not have
fled in the madness of suddenly wounded affection."

"Oh, Rule? if you could have only looked back on me after you went away,
only known the anguish your disappearance caused me and the inconsolable
sorrow of the time that followed it."

"If I could have supposed it possible even, I would have hastened to
you, from the uttermost parts of the earth!"

"And then they reported you dead, murdered by the Comanches, in the
massacre of La Terrepeur, and sorrow was deepened to despair."

"Yes; I heard of that massacre. The report of my death must have arisen
in this way: I had lived at La Terrepeur for many months, but had left
and come to this place some days before the massacre. Some other
unfortunate was murdered and burned in the deserted hut, whose bones
were found in ashes. I did not return to contradict the report. I wished
to be dead to the world, as I was dead to hope, dead to you, dead to
myself!"

"Oh, Rule! in all that time how I longed, famished, fainted, died, for
your presence! Yes, Rule; died daily."

"My own, dear Cora, how could I have mistaken you? Oh! if I had only
known!"

"Ah, yes! if you had only known my heart, or I had only known your
whereabouts! In either case we should have met before, and not lost four
years out of our lives! But now, Rule," she said, with sudden
animation--"now 'We meet to part no more,' as the hymn says. I will
never, never, never, leave you for a day! I will be your very shadow!"

"My sunshine, rather, dear!"

"And are you content, Rule?"

"Infinitely."

"And happy?"

"Perfectly."

"Thank God! So am I. But why, oh, why when we met by the spring just
now, why, when I was crazed with joy and fear at the sudden sight of
you, why di