remembered

What love saw done and undone.

Aspatria was different from all. He whispered her strange name on his lips, and he thought it must have wandered 24 from some sunny southern clime into these northern solitudes. His eyes shone; his heart beat. He said to it: “Make room for this innocent little one! What a darling she is! How clear, how candid, how beautiful! Oh, to be loved by such a woman! Oh, to kiss her!—to feel her kiss me!” He set his mouth tightly; the soft dreamy look in his face changed to one of purpose and pleasure.

24

“I shall win her, or die for it,” he said. “By Saint George! I would rather die than know that any other man had married her.”

Yet the thought of marriage somewhat sobered him. “I should have to give up my voyage to the Spanish Colonies,—and I am very much interested in their struggle. I could not take her to Mexico, I suppose,—there is nothing but fighting there; and I could not—no, I could not leave her. If she were mine, I should hate to have any one else breathe the same air with her. I could not endure that others should speak to her. I should want to strike any man who touched her hand. Perhaps I 25 had better go away in the morning, and ride this road no more. I have made my plans.”

25

And fate had made other plans. Who can fight against his destiny? When he saw Aspatria in the morning, every plan that did not include her seemed unworthy of his consideration. She was ten times lovelier in the daylight. She had that fresh invincible charm which women of culture and intellect seldom have: she was inspired by her heart. It taught her a thousand delightful subjugating ways. She served his breakfast with her own fair hands; she offered him the first sweet flowers in the garden; she fluttered around his necessities, his desires, his intentions, with a grace and a kindness nothing but love could have taught her.

He thanked her with marvellous glances, with smiles, with single words dropped only for her ears, with all the potent eloquence which passion and experience teach. And he had to pay the price, as all men must do. The lesson he taught 26 he also learned. “Aspatria!” he said, in soft, penetrating accents; and when she answered his call and came to his side, her dress trailing across his feet bewitched him. They were in the garden, and he clasped her hand, and went down the budding alleys with her, speechless, but gazing into her face until she dropped her tremulous, 

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