n it eloquent of something deeper
than a mere tourist's interest in this loveliest of interiors. The
cry which escaped her lips, the tone in which he breathed her name
in his hurried advance, convinced me that this was a meeting of two
lovers after a long heart-break and that I should mar the supreme
moment of their lives by intruding into it the unwelcome presence
of a stranger. So I lingered where I was and thus heard what
passed between them at this moment of all moments ire their lives.

"It was she who spoke first.

"Francis, you have come! You have sought me!"

"To which he replied in choked accents which yet could not conceal
the inexpressible elation of his heart:

"'Yes I have come, I have sought you. Why did you fly? Did you not
see that my whole soul was turning to you as it never turned even
to--to her in the best days of our unshaken love; and that I could
never rest till I found you and told you how the eyes which have
once been blind enjoy a passion of seeing unknown to others--a
passion which makes the object seem so dear--so dear--'

"He paused, perhaps to look at her, perhaps to recover his own
self-possession, and I caught the echo of a sigh of such utter
content and triumph from her lips that I was surprised when in
another moment she exclaimed in a tone so thrilling that I am sure
no common circumstances had separated this pair:

"'Have we a right to happiness while she-- Oh, Francis, I can not!
She loved you. It was her love for you which drove her--'

"'Cora!' came with a sort of loving authority, 'we have buried our
erring one and passionately as I loved her, she is no more mine,
but God's. Let her woeful spirit rest. You who suffered,
supported--who sacrificed all that woman holds dear to save what,
in the nature of things, could not be saved--have more than right
to happiness if it is in my power to give it to you; I, who have
failed in so much, but never in anything more than in not seeing
where true worth and real beauty lay. Cora, there is but one hand
which can lift the shadow from my life. That hand I am holding
now--do not draw it away--it is my anchor, my hope. I dare not
confront life without the promise it holds out. I should be a
wreck--'

"His emotion stopped him and there was silence; then I heard him
utter solemnly, as befitted the place: 'Thank God!' and I knew that
she had turned her wonderful eyes upon him or nestled her hand in
his clasp as only a loving