Scruples! I cast them all to the winds. Come what will, I must see you, must assure myself that there is no danger, that all is done for you which gives you a fair chance of recovery. If not--if with the clear vision that I know I can use on occasion, I see you fading from me--I shall snatch at you. I will have you--be it only for a day or an hour, I will have you, I say,--on my heart, in my arms. My love, my darling, my wife that ought to have been--you could not die out of my arms. I will make you live--I will make you love me. I will have you for my wife yet. I will---- God's will be done! CHAPTER X. HER STORY. |I am at home again. I sit by my bed-room fire in a new easy-chair. Oh, such care am I taken of now! I cast my eyes over the white waves of moorland:--= ```"Moor and pleasaunce looking equal in one snow."= Let me see, how does that verse begin?= ```"God be with thee, my beloved, God be with thee, ````As alone thou goest forth ````With thy face unto the North, ```Moor and pleasaunce looking equal in one snow: ````While I follow, vainly follow ````With the farewell and the hollow ```But cannot reach thee so."= Ah, but I can--I can! Can reach any where; to the north or the south; over the land or across the sea, to the world's end. Yea, beyond there if need be; even into the other unknown world. Since I last wrote here, in this room, things have befallen me, sudden and strange. And yet so natural do they seem, that I almost forget I was ever otherwise than I am now. I, Theodora Johnston, the same, yet not the same. I, just as I was, to be thought worthy of being--what I am, and what I hope some one day to be--God willing. My heart is full--how shall I write about these things--which never could be spoken about, which only to think of makes me feel as if I could but lay my head down in a wonder-stricken silence, that all should thus have happened unto me, this unworthy me. It is not likely I shall keep this journal much longer--but, until closing it finally, it shall go on as usual. Perhaps, it may be pleasant to read over, some day when I am old--when _we_ are old. One morning, I forget how long after the last date here, Mrs. Granton surprised me and everybody by insisting that the only thing for me was change of air, and that I should go back at once with her to be nursed at the Cedars. There was an invalid-carriage at the gate, with cushions, mats, and furs; there was papa waiting to help me downstairs, and Penelope with my trunk packed--in short, I was taken by storm, and had only to submit. They all said, it was the surest way of recovering, and must be tried. Now, I wished to get well, and fast, too; it was necessary I should, for several reasons. First, there was Penelope's marriage, with the after responsibility of my being the only daughter now left to keep the house and take care of papa.