At Love's Cost

--"I looked round and saw you; and when you turned and looked up

towards me, it seemed as if you must have seen me. But tell me! Oh, I

want to hear everything!"

The spell wrought by the joy of his presence still held her reason, her

memory, in thrall; one thought, one fact, dominated all others: the

fact that he was here, that she was in his arms, with her head on his

breast as of old.

And the spell was on him as strongly; how could he remember the past

and the barrier he had erected between them?

"I went to Australia, Ida," he said in a low voice, every note of which

was pitched to love's harmony: it soothed while it rejoiced her. "I met

a man in London, a farmer, who offered to take me out with him. You saw

me start, you say? How strange, how wonderful! And I, yes, I saw you,

but I could not believe my senses! How could it be my beautiful, dainty

Ida, the mistress of Herondale, standing on the dirty, squalid quay! I

went with him and worked with him on his cattle-run. Do you remember

how you taught me to count the sheep, Ida? God, how often when I was

riding through solitary wastes I have recalled those hours, every look

of your dear eyes, every curve of those sweet lips--hold them up to me,

dearest!--every tone of your voice, the low, musical voice the memory

of which had power to set every nerve tingling with longing and

despair. The work was hard, it seemed unceasing, but I was glad of it;

for sometimes I was too weary to think; too weary even to dream of you.

And it was sad business dreaming of you, Ida; for, you see, there was

the waking!"

"Do I not know!" she murmured, with something like a sob, and her hand

closed on his shoulder.

"My employer was a pleasant, genial man, my fellow-labourers were good

fellows; I could have been happy, or, at least, contented with the

life, hard as it was, if I could but have forgotten; if I could even

for a day have lost the awful hunger and thirst for you; if I could

have got you out of my mind, the memory of you out of my heart--but I

could not!"

He paused, looking straight before him; and gazing up at him, she saw

his face drawn and haggard, as if he still thought himself separated

from her. Then, as if he remembered, he looked down at her and caught

her to him with a sudden violence that almost hurt her.