And it was he
who entered into all these hours of hers as by a right that she had neither
the heart nor the strength to question.
For behind everything else there was one thing more--deeper than anything
else, dearer, more sacred; the feeling she would never surrender that for a
while at least he had cared more for her than he had ever realized.
One mild afternoon of autumn she was walking with quiet dignity around her
garden. She had just come from town where she had given to Jouett the last
sitting of her portrait, and she was richly dressed in the satin gown and
cap of lace which those who see the picture nowadays will remember. The
finishing of it had saddened her a little; she meant to leave it to him; and
she wondered whether, when he looked into the eyes of this portrait, he
would at last understand": she had tried to tell him the truth; it was the
truth that Jouett painted.
Thus she was thinking of the past as usual; and once she paused in the very
spot where one sweet afternoon of May long ago he had leaned over the fence,
holding in his hand his big black had decorated with a Jacobin cockade, and
had asked her consent to marry Amy.
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