Do not, I
pray you, fear to let me come! There are things that must be done in
faith, else they never have being: let this be one of them.--You stir."
As I came to these last words, hurriedly written, I heard behind me, over
the height, the quick gallop of a horse, and knew the piece of firm turf
he was crossing. The same moment I was there in spirit, and the
imagination was almost vision. I saw him speeding away--"to come again!"
said my heart, solemn with gladness.
Rising-manor was the house to which the lady took me that dread night
when first I knew what it was to be alone in darkness and silence and
space. Was that lady his mother? Had she rescued me for her son? I was
not willing to believe it, though I had never actually seen her. The way
was mostly dark, and during the latter portion of it, I was much too
weary to look up where she sat on her great horse. I had never to my
knowledge heard who lived at Rising. I was not born inquisitive, and
there were miles between us.
I sat still, without impulse to move a finger. I lived essentially. Now I
knew what had come to me. It was no merely idiosyncratic experience, for
the youth had the same: it was love! How otherwise could we thus be drawn
together from both sides! Verily it seemed also good enough to be that
wondrous thing ever on the lips of poets and tale-weaving magicians! Was
it not far beyond any notion of it their words had given me?
But my uncle! There lay bitterness! Was I indeed false to him, that now
the thought of him was a pain? Had I begun a new life apart from him? To
tell him would perhaps check the terrible separation! But how was I to
tell him? For the first time I knew that I had no mother! Would Mr.
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