'I should like to have seen Redclyffe bay again,' said Guy, after a space. 'Now that mamma is coming, that is the one thing. I suppose I had set my heart on it, for it comes back to me how I reckoned on standing on that rock with you, feeling the wind, hearing the surge, looking at the meeting of earth and sky, and the train of sunlight.' He spoke slowly, pausing between each recollection,--'You will see it some day,' he added. 'But I must give it up; it is earth after all, and looking back.'
Through the evening, he seemed to be dwelling on thoughts of his own, and only spoke to tell her of some message to friends at Redclyffe, or Hollywell, to mention little Marianne Dixon, or some other charge that he wished to leave. She thought he had mentioned almost every one with whom he had had any interchange of kindness at either of his homes, even to old nurse at Hollywell, remembering them all with quiet pleasure. At half-past eleven, he sent her to bed, and she went submissively, cheered by thinking him likely to sleep.
As soon as she could conscientiously call the night over, she returned to him, and was received with one of the sweet, sunny, happy looks that had always been his peculiar charm, and, of late, had acquired an expression almost startling from their very beauty and radiance. It was hardly to be termed a smile, for there was very little, if any, movement of the lips, it was more like the reflection of some glory upon the whole countenance.
'You have had a good night?' she said.
'I have had my wish, I have seen Redclyffe;' then, seeing her look startled, 'Of course, it was a sort of wandering; but I never quite lost the consciousness of being here, and it was very delightful. I saw the waves, each touched with light,--the foam--the sea-birds, floating in shade and light,--the trees--the Shag--the sky--oh! such a glory as I never knew--themselves--but so intensely glorious!'
'I am glad' said Amabel, with a strange participation of the delight it had given him.
'I don't understand such goodness!' he continued. 'As if it were not enough to look to heaven beyond, to have this longing gratified, which I thought I ought to conquer. Oh, Amy! is not that being Fatherly!'
'Yes, indeed.'
'Now after that, and with mamma's coming (for you will have her if I don't see her), I have but one wish unfulfilled.'
'Ah! a clergyman.'