To Have & To Hold by Mary Johnson Chapter 37 Page 16

sanctions the marriage of his sometime ward, the Lady Jocelyn Leigh, with Captain Ralph Percy; invites them home” —

She was gone home, and I her husband, I who loved her, was left behind. How many years of pilgrimage� how long, how long, O Lord?

The minister’s great armchair was drawn before the cold and blackened hearth. How often she had sat there within its dark clasp, the firelight on her dress, her hands, her face! She had been fair to look upon; the pride, the daring, the willfulness, were but the thorns about the rose; behind those defenses was the flower, pure and lovely, with a heart of gold. I flung myself down beside the chair, and, putting my arms across it, hid my face upon them, and could weep at last.

That passion spent