I well understood his meaning yet could find no answer to his words. So again he went on whispering them in my ear. "No, not alone. My wife must go with me. And, Joice, to-night I will tell Kinchella to make all ready, to proclaim our banns, and to prepare to make us one. It shall be so, my sweet saint, my tender Virginian rose, my heart's best and only love; it shall be so, shall it not?" What could I say but yes--what other answer make? No woman who had loved him as I had loved him (even ere I knew him, I think)--no woman who had dreamt of his sad story and then come to know him and see his beauty and grace and his fierce bravery exacted on her behalf, but must have answered yes, as I did. For he was all a woman's heart most longs for; all that she most aspires to possess; handsome and brave, yet gentle; fierce as the lion when roused, yet how tender and how true. So I whispered "Yes," and murmured my love to him and the compact was made; our fond troth plighted again with many a kiss. It was in the old church, from the wooden tower of which the cannon had been fired so often on that dreadful night of death and horror, that we were married. As was the custom of the colony--though one, I think, that might well be changed--the minister took the first kiss from me, while my husband kissed my bridesmaid, Mary, and afterwards I had to submit to being kissed by every gentleman present, while all the while I wanted no other embrace than that of my dear lord. Yet it had to be borne, and one of the first to avail himself of this privilege was Gregory, who kissed me sadly, saying as he did so: "Ah, Joice, 'twas otherwise I had hoped some day to kiss thy sweet brow. Yet 'twas not to be and so I must bear it as best I may," and he passed sadly down the aisle and away home, tarrying not for the drinkings nor merry-makings that afterwards set in. But, poor lad, he struggled with his love for me so well that at last he conquered it, and certainly his disappointment made no difference in his friendship for me or my husband. During our absence in England he managed my property as carefully as though it had been his own, and regularly sent us an exact account of all he had done, so that 'twas easy to see, and to admire in seeing, that his unaccepted love had not made an enemy of him.