All I just hoped was that you
might not think it only a girl's fancy; but indeed I should not
have cared if you HAD thought that. The TRUTH--that is what
matters; and nothing that you or I or anyone, in any passion of
love or sorrow, can believe about the truth, can alter it; the only
thing is to try to see it all clearly, not to give false reasons,
not to let one's imagination go."
"Yes, yes," said Howard, "that's the secret of love and life and
everything; and yet it seems a hard thing to believe; because if it
were not for your illusions about me, for instance--if you could
really see me as I am--you couldn't feel as you do; one comes back
to trusting one's heart after all--that is the only power we have
of reading the writing on the wall. And yet that is not all; it IS
possible to read it, to spell it out; but it is the interpretation
that one needs, and for that one must trust love, and love only."
They went back to the house in a happy silence; but Maud slipped
out again, and went to the little churchyard. There behind the
chancel, in a corner of the buttress, was a little mound. Maud laid
a single white flower upon it. "No," she said softly, as if
speaking in the ear of a child, "no, my darling, I am not making
any mistake. I don't think of you as sleeping here, though I love
the place where the little limbs are laid. You are awake, alive,
about your business, I don't doubt. I'd have loved you, guarded
you, helped you along; but you have made love live for me, and
that, and hope, are enough now for us both! I don't claim you,
sweet; I don't even ask you to remember and understand.
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