Beyond the Rocks

* * * * * And late that night he wrote to Theodora.

"My darling," he began. "I must call you that even though I have no

right to. My darling--I want to tell you these my thoughts to-night,

before I see you to-morrow as an ordinary guest at your dinner-party. I

want you to know how utterly I love you, and how I am going to do my

best with the rest of my life to show you how I honor you and revered

you as an angel, and something to live for and shape my aims to be

worthy of the recollection of that hour of bliss you granted me. Dearest

love, does it not give you joy--just a little--to remember those moments

of heaven? I do not regret anything, though I am all to blame, for I

knew from the beginning I loved you, and just where love would lead us.

But it was not until I saw the peep into your soul, when you never

reproached me, that I began to understand what a brute I had been--how

unworthy of you or your love. Darling, I don't ask you to try and forget

me--indeed, I implore you not to do so. I think and believe you are of

the nature which only loves once in a lifetime, and I am world-worn and

experienced enough to know I have never really loved before. How

passionately I do now I cannot put into words. So let us keep our love

sacred in our hearts, my darling, and the knowledge of it will comfort

and soothe the anguish of separation. Beloved one, I am always thinking

of you, and I want to tell you my vision of heaven would be to possess

you for my wife. My happiest dream will always be that you are there--at

Bracondale--queen of my home and my heart, darling. My darling! But

however it may be, whether you decide to chase away every thought of me

or not, I want you to know I will go on worshipping you, and doing my

utmost to serve you with my life.--For ever and ever your devoted

lover."

And then he signed it "Hector," and not "Bracondale."

The widow had promised to give it into Theodora's own hand on the

morrow.

He added a postscript: "I want you to meet my mother and my sister in London. Will you let me

arrange it? I think you will like Anne. And oh, more than all I want you

to come to Bracondale. Write me your answer that I may have your words

to keep always."