"Never mind the hardship; you will soon recover from that," she said. "I
am sorry that I have acted against your wishes, and broken the long
silence. I will never do it again, Norman."
"Never, unless you are ill and need me," he supplemented. "Then you have
promised to send for me."
"I will do so" she said. "You will remember, dear husband, that my last
words to you were 'Good-by, and Heaven bless you.'"
The words died away on her lips. He turned aside lest she should see the
trembling of his face; he never complained to her. He knew now that she
thought him hard, cold, unfeeling, indifferent--that she thought his
pride greater than his love; but even that was better than that she
should know he suffered more than she did--she must never know that.
When he turned back from the tossing waves and the summer sun she was
gone. He looked across the beach--there was no sign of her. She was
gone; and he avowed to himself that it would be wonderful if ever in
this world he saw her again. She did not remain at Tintagel; to do so
would be useless, hopeless. She saw it now. She had hoped against hope:
she had said to herself that in a year and a half he would surely have
altered his mind--he would have found now how hard it was to live alone,
to live without love--he would have found that there was something
dearer in the world than family pride--he would have discovered that
love outweighed everything else.
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