“This is from you, Ben.”

“Never mind; I knew I wanted to marry her, when I saw her.  I love her passionately,” and he threw a pebble in the water farther than he had yet; “but she is so pure, so delicate, that when I approach her, in spite of my besottedness, my love grows lambent.  That’s not like me, you know,” with great vehemence.  “Will she never understand me?”

His face darkened, and he looked so strangely intent into my eyes that I was obliged to turn away; he disturbed me.

“Veronica probably will not understand you, but you must manage for yourself.  As you have discerned, she and I are far apart.  She is pure, noble, beautiful, and peculiar.  I will have no voice between you.”

“You must, you do.  We shall hear it if you do not speak.  You have a great power, tall enchantress.”

“Certainly.  What a powerful life is mine!”

“You come to these shores often.  Are you not different beside them?  This colorless picture before us—­these vague spaces of sea and land—­the motion of the one—­the stillness of the other—­have you no sense that you have a powerful spirit?”

“Is it power?  It is pain.”

“Your gold has not been refined then.”

“Yes, I confess I have a sense of power; but it is not a spiritual sense.”

“Let us go back,” he said abruptly.

We mused by our footprints in the wet sand, as we passed them.  We were told when we reached home that Veronica had gone on some expedition with Fanny.  She did not return till time for supper, looking elfish, and behaving whimsically, as if she had received instructions accordingly.  I fancied that the expression Ben regarded her with might be the Bellevue Pickersgill expression, it was so different from any I had seen.  There was a haughty curiosity in his face; as she passed near him, he looked into her eyes, and saw the strange cast which made their sight so far off.

“Veronica, where are you?” he asked.

The tone of his voice attracted mother’s regards; an intelligent glance was exchanged, and then her eyes sought mine.  “It is not as you thought, mamma,” I telegraphed.  But Verry, not bringing her eyes back into the world, merely said, “I am here, am I not?” and went to shut herself up in her room.  I found her there, looking through the wicket.

“The buds are beginning to swell,” she said.  “I should hear small voices breaking out from the earth.  I grow happy every day now.”

“Because the earth will be green again?” I asked, in a coaxing voice.

She shut the wicket, and, looking in my face, said, “I will go down immediately.”  For some reason the tears came into my eyes, which she, taking up the candle, saw.  “I am going to play,” she said hurriedly, “come.”  She ran down before me, but turning, by the foot of the stairs, she pointed to the parlor door, and said, “Is he my husband?”

“Answer for yourself.  Go in, in God’s name.”