e as none but such a soul could make a
woman's, and so fit to mate with man's. In the heavy days when I was
wont to gaze at you from afar with burning heart, my unceasing anguish
was that even high honour itself could not subdue and conquer the
thoughts which leaped within me even as my pulse leaped, and even as
my pulse could not be stilled unless by death. And one that for ever
haunted--ay, and taunted--me was the image of how your tall, beauteous
body would yield itself to a strong man's arm, and your noble head
with its heavy tower of hair resting upon his shoulder--the centres of
his very being would be thrilled and shaken by the uplifting of such
melting eyes as surely man ne'er gazed within on earth before, and the
ripe and scarlet bow of a mouth so beauteous and so sweet with
womanhood. This beset me day and night, and with such torture that I
feared betimes my brain might reel and I become a lost and ruined
madman. And now--it is no more forbidden me to dwell upon it--nay, I
lie waking at night, wooing the picture to me, and at times I rise
from my dreams to kneel by my bedside and thank God that He hath given
me at last what surely is my own!-for so it seems to me, my love, that
each of us is but a part of the other, and that such forces of Nature
rush to meet together in us, that Nature herself would cry out were we
rent apart. If there were aught to rise like a ghost between us, if
there were aught that could sunder us--noble soul, let us but swear
that it shall weld us but the closer together, and that locked in each
other's arms its blows shall not even make our united strength to
sway. Sweetest lady, your lovely lip will curve in smiles, and you
will say, 'He is mad with his joy--my Gerald' (for never till my heart
stops at its last beat and leaves me still, a dead man, cold upon my
bed, can I forget the music of your speech when you spoke those words,
'My Gerald! My Gerald.') And indeed I crave your pardon, for a man
so filled with rapture cannot be quite sane, and sometimes I wonder if
I walk through the palace gardens like one who is drunk, so does my
brain reel. But soon, my heavenly, noble love, my exile will be over,
and this is in truth what my letter is to tell you, that in four days
your lacqueys will throw open your doors to me and I shall enter, and
being led to you, shall kneel at your f