he had last seen it long ago. The years had passed, indeed, and he had
sought her through many lands, but she had come back to him the same, in
the glory of her youth, in the strength of her love, in the divinity of
her dark beauty, his always, through it all, his now--for ever.

For a long time he did not speak. The words rose to his lips and failed
of utterance, as the first mist of early morning is drawn heavenwards to
vanish in the rising sun. The long-drawn breath could have made no sound
of sweeter meaning than the unspoken speech that rose in the deep gray
eyes. Nature's grand organ, touched by hands divine, can yield no chord
more moving than a lover's sigh.

Words came at last, as after the welcome shower in summer's heat the
song of birds rings through the woods, and out across the fields, upon
the clear, earth-scented air--words fresh from their long rest within
his heart, unused in years of loneliness but unforgotten and familiar
still--untarnished jewels from the inmost depths; rich treasures from
the storehouse of a deathless faith; diamonds of truth, rubies of
passion, pearls of devotion studding the golden links of the chain of
love.

"At last--at last--at last! Life of my life, the day is come that is not
day without you, and now it will always be day for us two--day without
end and sun for ever! And yet, I have seen you always in my night, just
as I see you now. As I hold your dear hands, I have held them--day by
day and year by year--and I have smoothed that black hair of yours that
I love, and kissed those dark eyes of yours many and many a thousand
times. It has been so long, love, so very long! But I knew it would come
some day. I knew I should find you, for you have been always with me,
dear--always and everywhere. The world is all full of you, for I have
wandered through it all and taken you with me and made every place yours
with the thought of you, and the love of you and the worship of you. For
me, there is not an ocean nor a sea nor a river, nor rock nor island
nor broad continent of earth, that has not known Beatrice and loved
her name. Heart of my heart, soul of my soul--the nights and the
days without you, the lands and the oceans where you were not, the
endlessness of this little world that hid you somewhere, the littleness
of the whole universe without you--how can you ever know what it has
been to me? And so it is gone at last--gone as a dream of sickness in
the morning of health; gon