“It was three weeks before her wedding day, and I was mad with wounded love and sorrow. I went over to Mount Severn--not to talk to her, Ronald, not to try to induce her to break her faith--only to look at her and bear away with me the memory of her sweet face forever and forever. It is only two years last June. I walked through the grounds, and she was sitting in the center of a group of young girls, her bridesmaids who were to be, her fair hair catching the sunbeams, her lovely face brighter than the morning, the love-light in her eyes; and she was talking of you, Ronald, every word full of music, yet every word pierced my heart with hot pain. I did not go to speak to her, but I stood for an hour watching her face, impressing its glorious young beauty on my mind. I said to myself that I bade her farewell, and the thought came to my mind, ‘How will she look when I see her again?’” Then he seemed to forget Sir Ronald was present, and he bent again over the beautiful face. “If you could only look at me once, only unclose those white lips and speak to me, who loves you as I do, my lost darling.” He took one of the roses from the folded hands and kissed it passionately as he had kissed her lips. “You cannot hear me, Clarice,” at last he murmured, “at least with mortal ears; you cannot see me; but listen, my darling, I loved you better than I loved my life; I kiss your dead lips, sweet, and I swear that I will never kiss another woman. You are gone now where all secrets are known; you know now how I loved you; and when I go to the eternal land you will meet me. No love shall replace you. I will be true to you, dead, as I was while you were living. Do you hear me, Clarice?” All the time he poured out this passionate torrent of words Sir Ronald stood with bowed head and folded arms. “I kiss those white lips again, love, and on them I swear to know no rest, no pleasure, no repose until I have brought the man who murdered you to answer for his crime; I swear to devote all the talent and wealth God has given me to that purpose; I will give my days and nights--my thoughts, time, energies--all for it; and when I have avenged you I will come and kneel down by your grave and tell you so.” Then he looked up at Sir Ronald. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “What steps shall you take?” “Everything possible has been done. I know no more that I can do.” Kenelm Eyrle looked up at him. “Do you mean to sleep, to eat, to rest, while the man who did that dastardly deed lives?” His eyes flashed fire. “I shall do my best,” Sir Ronald said, with a heavy groan. “God help us all. It has been a dreadful mistake, Kenelm. You loved her best.”