She felt his strong frame tremble, and a heavy shuddering sigh broke from his lips and swept across her cheek. But when he spoke his words contained no hint of the promise she longed to receive: "Edna, my shadow has fallen across your heart, and I am not afraid that you will forget me. You will try to do so, you will give me as little thought as possible; you will struggle to crush your aching heart, and endeavor to be famous. But amid your ovations the memory of a lonely man, who loves you infinitely better than all the world for which you forsook him, will come like a breath from the sepulchre, to wither your bays; and my words, my pleading words, will haunt you, rising above the paeans of your public worshippers. When the laurel crown you covet now shall become a chaplet of thorns piercing your temples, or a band of iron that makes your brow ache, you will think mournfully of the days gone by, when I prayed for the privilege of resting your weary head here on my heart. You can not forget me. Sinful and unworthy as I confess myself, I am conqueror, I triumph now, even though you never permit me to look upon your face again; for I believe I have a place in my darling's heart which no other man, which not the whole world can usurp or fill! You are too proud to acknowledge it, too truthful to deny it; but, my pure Pearl, my heart feels it as well as yours, and it is a comfort of which all time can not rob me. Without it, how could I face my future, so desolate, sombre, lonely? Edna, the hour has come when, in accordance with your own decree, we part. For twenty years no woman's lips, except my mother's, have touched mine until yesterday, when they pressed yours. Perhaps we may never meet again in this world, and, ah! do not shrink away from me, I want to kiss you once more, my darling! my darling! I shall wear it on my lips till death stiffens them; and I am not at all afraid that any other man will ever be allowed to touch lips that belong to me alone; that I have made, and here seal, all my own! Good-bye."
He strained her to him and pressed his lips twice to hers, then the carriage stopped at the railroad station.
He handed her out, found a seat for her in the cars, which had just arrived, arranged her wrappings comfortably, and went back to attend to her trunks. She sat near an open window, and though it rained heavily, he buttoned his coat to the throat, and stood just beneath it, with his eyes bent down. Twice she pronounced his name, but he did not seem to hear her, and Edna put her hand lightly on his shoulder and said: "Do not stand here in the rain. In a few minutes we shall start, and I prefer that you should not wait. Please go home at once, Mr. Murray."