e quiet light of the June evening I knelt in the chancel
upon the rushes that strewed the grave of my father and my mother, and
sent my spirit up towards them in the place of their eternal rest, and
to the God who guards them. A great calm came upon me as I knelt thus,
and I felt how mad had been that oath of mine that as a lad I had sworn
to be avenged upon de Garcia, and I saw how as a tree from a seed, all
my sorrows had grown from it. But even then I could not do other than
hate de Garcia, no, nor can I to this hour, and after all it was natural
that I should desire vengeance on the murderer of my mother though the
wreaking of it had best been left in another Hand.

Without the little chancel door I met Lily, who was lingering there
knowing me to be within, and we spoke together.

'Lily,' I said, 'I would ask you something. After all that has been,
will you still take me for your husband, unworthy as I am?'

'I promised so to do many a year ago, Thomas,' she answered, speaking
very low, and blushing like the wild rose that bloomed upon a grave
beside her, 'and I have never changed my mind. Indeed for many years I
have looked upon you as my husband, though I thought you dead.'

'Perhaps it is more than I deserve,' I said. 'But if it is to be, say
when it shall be, for youth has left us and we have little time to
lose.'

'When you will, Thomas,' she answered, placing her hand in mine.

Within a week from that evening we were wed.

And now my tale is done. God who gave me so sad and troublous a youth
and early manhood, has blessed me beyond measure in my middle age and
eld. All these events of which I have written at such length were done
with many a day ago: the hornbeam sapling that I set beneath these
windows in the year when we were married is now a goodly tree of shade
and still I live to look on it. Here in the happy valley of the Waveney,
save for my bitter memories and that longing for the dead which no time
can so much as dull, year after year has rolled over my silvering hairs
in perfect health and peace and rest, and year by year have I rejoiced
more deeply in the true love of a wife such as few have known. For
it would seem as though the heart-ache and despair of youth had but
sweetened that most noble nature till it grew well nigh divine. But one
sorrow came to us, the death of our infant child--for it was fated that
I should die childless--and in that sorrow, as I have told, Lily shewed
that she