"I would that they had
done so. And you are alone? I am glad that you died not, my
friend; yes, faith, I am very glad that one escaped. Tell me about it,
and I will sit here upon the bank and listen. Was it done in this
wood? A gloomy deathbed, friend, for one so young and fair. She
should have died to soft music, in the sunshine, with flowers about
her."
With an exclamation he put me from him, but kept his hand upon
my arm and his steady eyes upon my face.
"She loved laughter and sunshine and sweet songs," I continued.
"She can never know them in this wood. They are outside; they are
outside the world, I think. It is sad, is it not? Faith, I think it is the
saddest thing I have ever known."
He clapped his other hand upon my shoulder. "Wake, man!" he
commanded. "If thou shouldst go mad now - Wake! thy brain is
turning. Hold to thyself. Stand fast, as thou art soldier and
Christian! Ralph, she is not dead. She will wear flowers, - thy
flowers, - sing, laugh, move through the sunshine of earth for many
and many a year, please God! Art listening, Ralph? Canst hear
what I am saying?"
"I hear," I said at last, "but I do not well understand."
He pushed me back against a pine, and held me there with his
hands upon my shoulders. "Listen," he said, speaking rapidly and
keeping his eyes upon mine. "All those days that you were gone,
when all the world declared you dead, she believed you living.
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