"'This were the curse, and curse me if you will, I yet will bless you! And now hear, hear what the blessing might be if you so willed it. In spiritual union we should be forever linked, soul with soul, and heart with heart--all in all to one another in that wedding of our immortal spirits only, as truly and joyously as though we had been bound in an earthly bridal at the altar; abiding forever near each other in sweetest and most pure companionship, while my father lives under the same roof, and afterward still meeting daily; one in love, in joy, in hope, in sorrow; one in death (for if your soul were first called forth, I know that mine would take that summons for its own), and one, if it were so permitted, in eternity itself. This we may be, Richard Sydney, this we shall be, except you will, this day, trample down beneath your feet the life that gives itself to you. But wherefore, oh, wherefore would you do so? Why cast away the gift which hath been sent, in order that, by a wondrous and most just decree, the righteous man who, in his noble rectitude, abandoned every earthly tie, should be possessed, instead thereof, of such a deep, devoted love as never human heart received before? Wherefore, oh! wherefore? Yet, do as you will, now you know all; and I, who still, whatever be your decree, happen what may, am verily your own forever, must here abide the sentence of my life.' "Slowly her dear head fell down upon her trembling hands, and, kneeling at my feet, she waited my acceptance or rejection of the noblest gift that ever one immortal spirit made unto another. Lilias, I told you when I commenced this agonizing record, that there were portions of it which I would breathe to no mortal ears, not even to yours, good and gentle as you are. And now, of such is all that followed in the solemn, blessed hours of which I speak; you know what my answer was; it can not be that you doubt it--could it have been otherwise, indeed? She had said truly, that the deed was done--the sacrifice was made--the life was given. What would it have availed if I, by my rejection, had punished her unparalleled devotion with unexampled misery? and for myself, could I--could I--should I have been human if I, who, till that hour, had believed myself of all men most accursed on earth--had suddenly refused to be above all men blest? "When the sun went down that night, sinking into the sea, whose boundlessness seemed narrow to my infinity of joy, Aletheia lay at my feet like a cradled child; and as I bent down over her, and scarcely dared to touch, with deep respect, the long, soft tresses of her waving hair, which the light breeze lifted to my lips, I heard her ever murmuring, as though she could never weary of that sound of joy--'Mine own, mine own forever.'