"She said that in time she would win the rest.
"A few weeks later that letter came from you, bringing the intelligence that
changed everything. (Do you remember my reply? I seem only this moment to
have dropped the pen.) As soon as I could control myself, I told her that
now you were free, that it was but justice and kindness alike to her and to
me that I should give here the chance to reconsider the engagement. A week
passed, I went again. I warned her how different the situation had become. I
could promise less than before--I could not say how little. A month later I
went again.
"Ah, well--that is all!
"The summer after my marriage I travelled to Virginia regarding a landsuit.
One day I rode far out of my course into the path of the country where you
lived. I remained some days strolling over the silent woods and fields,
noting the bushes on the lawn, such as you had carried over into Kentucky,
hunting out the quiet nooks where you were used to read in your girlhood.
Those long, sweet, sacred summer days alone with you there before you were
married! O Jessica! Jessica! Jessica! Jessica! And to this day the sight of
peach blossoms in the spring--the rustle of autumn leaves under my feet! Can
you recall the lines of Malory? 'Men and women could love together seven
years, and then was love truth and faithfulness.
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