"Grizel. Beloved! You are my life, but _can_ I take you? Dare I? Is
it right?"
"You have no choice--I'm here! Martin, I've loved you since that day I
saw you first, standing with little Juliet among the roses... She'll be
glad, Martin--there can be no jealousy in a spiritual world. She'll
just rejoice that you are happy, and that love has come to you again.
I'm so sure of that!"
Was there another woman in the world who would have spoken of Juliet at
that moment? Martin flinched, for at the back of his mind still
lingered a consciousness of disloyalty, but he loved Grizel the more for
her sweet comfort.
"I--I hope she is," he said unsteadily. "Grizel you brought me back to
life, but I dared not hope for this.--I'll work like ten men; I will
pour out my life for you like water, but I can never repay--never be
worthy. Oh, my beautiful, that you should give up so much for _met_ The
wonder of it stuns me. Ought I to let you?"
"You can't help it. I'm here," cried Grizel once more. She tilted her
face to look up at him, laughing, with the tears still wet on her
lashes. "And, oh, Martin, _won't_ it sell your books! Think of the
advertisement! Shall we keep it quiet until the new novel is out? Not
_too_ long, because, you know, I don't mean to touch that money. It
wouldn't be straight, when I'm going to break the condition. There must
be no question of staying on in the house, and making a book. I am not
going back..."
"And when--when?" queried Martin hotly. "Grizel, will you come to me at
once? Why should we wait? Everything is ready, if you are really
willing to come to this tiny house. If it comes to that, I can't wait,
and I _won't_! You shall never leave me again."
"Oh, won't I though," Grizel laughed softly, pushing him from her with
determined hands. "Now--let's be sensible!--Sit over there, and I'll
tell you just what I will do, and what I won't--I won't marry you until
the old Buddy has been dead for some months, and I won't ever live in
this house. We'll find another, that looks to the sun, and I'll furnish
it in my own way, with my own fads. Buddy gave me lots of treasures for
my own rooms. They are mine whatever I do, and I must have room for
them. I have five hundred a year, you know, Martin. Shall you be able
to afford a better house with an extra five hundred?"
"I can afford it now. You are quite right, it would be better to move,
but I'm not going to touch a halfpenny of your money, sweetheart. You
must keep that for yourself. It will seem little enough."
"It takes a great _deal_ to dress me!" sighed Grizel plaintively.
"Can't think why, when I'm so thin. And my lame dogs! I must squeeze
out something for them. Well! there are some good pictures, and curios,
and jewels. They are mine, too. With an occasional visit to the
pawnshop, we'll last out, somehow, till I'm fifty. Won't be so long
either! But, Martin! in heaven's name, _Who_ will order the dinners?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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