He would love her back to life and light!

And so Robert Browning told her all this shortly after, but before he
told, she had divined his thought. For solitude and loneliness and
heart-hunger had given her the power of an astral being; she was in
communication with all the finer forces that pervade our ether. He would
love her back to life and light--he told her so. She grew better.

And soon we find her getting up and throwing wide the shutters. It was no
longer the darkened room, for the sunlight came dancing through the
apartment, driving out all the dark shadows that lurked therein.

The doctor was indignant; the nurse resigned.

Of course, Mr. Barrett was not taken into confidence and no one asked his
consent. Why should they?--he was the man who could never understand.

So one fine day when the coast was clear, the couple went over to Saint
Marylebone Church and were married. The bride went home alone--could walk
all right now--and it was a week before her husband saw her, because he
would not be a hypocrite and go ring the doorbell and ask if Miss Barrett
was home; and of course if he had asked for Mrs. Robert Browning, no one
would have known whom he wanted to see.

But at the end of a week, the bride stole down the stairs, while the
family was at dinner, leading her dog Flush by a string, and all the time,
with throbbing heart, she prayed the dog not to bark. I have oft wondered
in the stilly night season what the effect on English Letters would have
been, had the dog really barked! But the dog did not bark; and Elizabeth
met her lover-husband there on the corner where the mail-box is. No one