“It was just such a night as this. I remember her so plainly—how I stood by the gate and watched the shadows of the pines flicker on the walk, and, man though I was, trembled to take the final step. She met me so cordially, more than was her wont, I thought. She was so lovely on that calm summer evening; so doubly frail, too, that my solicitude for her kept pace with my love. She was alone. With no sound save the rustle of the pines, and no one to hear save God and her, I told her all my heart. I told her how I worshipped her with all the strength of my being. I told her how I would struggle to the end of life to make myself worthy of her. “She waited a full minute before she answered me. In that minute it seemed as though my reason would give way. She was so white with the moonlight streaming in upon her, as she put her hand in mine and said, with an irrepressible tenderness, ‘Burton’ (and nobody else spoke my name as she did), ‘Burton, I have promised to help Alfred Trumbull win souls.’ At first I was dumb; then I buried my face in my hands and groaned aloud, then I wept like a child that cannot be comforted. Oh, Marsh, there is nothing that bends a man’s soul like that! I felt alone—no support, no guide, no love, no hope. Life was worse than a blank; a dull, dread certainty of sorrow. It would be torture to die if death were to remove me from her sight—it would be torture to live and never have her love or presence. Those were bitter days, full of the depths of sorrow. Those days made me grow old a score of years. I was never young afterward. “At last, when I could command myself, I begged to be allowed to love her till my life went out. If any one could win her instead of me, I was thankful to have it one so good as Alfred Trumbull. I conquered self. I found my highest happiness was still to see her happy. Sometimes when I visited her the old love, the yearning to claim her for myself, would sweep over me till my head grew dizzy and my heart sank within me, and then my better nature said: ‘Rejoice in her joy, and be content only to love.’ “I came at last to be resigned—yes, happy in my idol-worship. From her I could hope for nothing but kindness and tenderness, but I could never love any other. The time drew near when she and Alfred Trumbull were to commence their grand life-work. Suddenly his health failed. She went to him—she cared for him day and night with the same intensity of love that I had given her. It could not arrest disease. He longed for returning health, because they would have been so happy and congenial in their love and work; but one day in early spring he died in her arms, and was laid away among the first flowers, to rest from his labors.