)
(_Reading_.) These cold words I understand, but--_letters!_--He wrote me
none! Was there ever a word between us, from the hour when he left me,
his fancied bride, to that last meeting, when, at a word, and ere I knew
what I had said, he turned on me that cold and careless eye, and left
me, haughtily and forever? And now--(_reading_)--misapprehension, has it
been! Is the sun on high again?--in this black and starless night--the
noonday sun? He loves me still.--Oh! this joy weighs like grief.
Shall I see him again? Joy! joy! Beautiful sunshine joy! Who knows the
soul's rich depths till joy hath lighted them?--from the dim and
sorrowful haunts of memory will he come again into the living present!
Shall I see those eyes, looking on me? Shall I hear my name in that lost
music sound once more?--His?--Am I his again? New mantled with that
shining love, like some glorious and beautiful stranger I seem to
myself, _Helen_--the bright and joy-wreathed thing his voice makes that
name mean--My life will be all full of that blest music. I shall be
Helen, evermore his--his.
No,--it would make liars of old sages,--and all books would read wrong.
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