VIII.

Days passed.  The golden summer
In sudden heat bore down
Its blue, bright, glowing sweetness
Upon the scorching town. 
And sights and sounds of country
Came in the warm soft tune
Sung by the honey’d breezes
Borne on the wings of June.

IX.

One twilight hour, but earlier
Than usual, Bertha thought
She knew the fresh sweet fragrance
Of flowers that Leonard brought;
Through open’d doors and windows
It stole up through the gloom,
And with appealing sweetness
Drew Bertha from her room.

X.

Yes, he was there; and pausing
Just near the open’d door,
To check her heart’s quick beating,
She heard—­and paused still more—­
His low voice Dora’s answers—­
His pleading—­Yes, she knew
The tone—­the words—­the accents: 
She once had heard them too.

XI.

“Would Bertha blame her?” Leonard’s
Low, tender answer came: 
“Bertha was far too noble
To think or dream of blame.” 
“And was he sure he loved her?”
“Yes, with the one love given
Once in a lifetime only,
With one soul and one heaven!”

XII.

Then came a plaintive murmur,—­
“Dora had once been told
That he and Bertha—­” “Dearest,
Bertha is far too cold
To love; and I, my Dora,
If once I fancied so,
It was a brief delusion,
And over,—­long ago.”

XIII.

Between the Past and Present,
On that bleak moment’s height,
She stood.  As some lost traveller
By a quick flash of light
Seeing a gulf before him,
With dizzy, sick despair,
Reels to clutch backward, but to find
A deeper chasm there.

XIV.

The twilight grew still darker,
The fragrant flowers more sweet,
The stars shone out in heaven,
The lamps gleam’d down the street;
And hours pass’d in dreaming
Over their new-found fate,
Ere they could think of wondering
Why Bertha was so late.

XV.

She came, and calmly listen’d;
In vain they strove to trace
If Herbert’s memory shadow’d
In grief upon her face. 
No blame, no wonder show’d there,
No feeling could be told;
Her voice was not less steady,
Her manner not more cold.

XVI.

They could not hear the anguish
That broke in words of pain
Through that calm summer midnight,—­
“My Herbert—­mine again!”
Yes, they have once been parted,
But this day shall restore
The long lost one:  she claims him: 
“My Herbert—­mine once more!”