g told her all this shortly after, but before he
told, she had divined his thought. For solitude and loneliness and
heart-hunger had given her the power of an astral being; she was in
communication with all the finer forces that pervade our ether. He would
love her back to life and light--he told her so. She grew better.

And soon we find her getting up and throwing wide the shutters. It was no
longer the darkened room, for the sunlight came dancing through the
apartment, driving out all the dark shadows that lurked therein.

The doctor was indignant; the nurse resigned.

Of course, Mr. Barrett was not taken into confidence and no one asked his
consent. Why should they?--he was the man who could never understand.

So one fine day when the coast was clear, the couple went over to Saint
Marylebone Church and were married. The bride went home alone--could walk
all right now--and it was a week before her husband saw her, because he
would not be a hypocrite and go ring the doorbell and ask if Miss Barrett
was home; and of course if he had asked for Mrs. Robert Browning, no one
would have known whom he wanted to see.

But at the end of a week, the bride stole down the stairs, while the
family was at dinner, leading her dog Flush by a string, and all the time,
with throbbing heart, she prayed the dog not to bark. I have oft wondered
in the stilly night season what the effect on English Letters would have
been, had the dog really barked! But the dog did not bark; and Elizabeth
met her lover-husband there on the corner where the mail-box is. No one
missed the runaways until the next day, and then the bride and groom were
safely in France, writing letters back from Dieppe, asking forgiveness and
craving blessings.

* * * * *

"She is the Genius and I am the Clever Person," Browning used to say. And
this I believe will be the world's final judgment.

Browning knew the world in its every phase--good and bad, high and low,
society and commerce, the shop and gypsy camp. He absorbed things,
assimilated them, compared and wrote it out.

Elizabeth Barrett had never traveled, her opportunities for meeting people
had been few, her experiences limited, and yet she evolved truth: she
secreted beauty from within.

For two years after their elopement they did not write--how could they?
goodness me! They were on their wedding-tour. They lived in Florence and
Rome and in various mountain villages in Ital