Scoville's words haunted her like sweet refrains of music. No matter
how weary, perplexed and sad she was, the certainty of her place in
his thoughts and heart sustained her and was like a long line of
light in the west, indicating a clearing storm. "He WILL come
again," she often whispered to herself; "he said he would if he had
to come on crutches. Oh, he DOES love me. He gave me his love that
night direct, warm from his heart, because he couldn't help himself.
He thought he loved me before--when, by the run, he told me of it so
quietly, so free from all exaction and demands; but I didn't feel
it. It merely seemed like bright sunshine of kindness and goodwill,
very sweet and satisfying then. But when we were parting, when his
tones trembled so, when overcome, he lost restraint and snatched me
to HIS heart--then I learned that _I_, too, had a heart."
If she had been given time this new heart-life, with thoughts and
hopes springing from it like flowers, would have restored her
elasticity. Scoville's manly visage, his eyes, so often mirthful,
always kind, would have become so real to her fancy that the pallid,
drawn features of the suffering, the dying and the dead, would have
faded from her memory.
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