which comes from the soul's consciousness of immortality; it could not
have resisted earth, but from the forts and armies it won from heaven.
Thus from Harold might Edith be said to have taken her very soul. And
with the soul, and through the soul, woke the mind from the mists of
childhood.

In the intense desire to be worthy the love of the foremost man of her
land; to be the companion of his mind, as well as the mistress of his
heart, she had acquired, she knew not how, strange stores of thought,
and intelligence, and pure, gentle wisdom. In opening to her
confidence his own high aims and projects, he himself was scarcely
conscious how often he confided but to consult--how often and how
insensibly she coloured his reflections and shaped his designs.
Whatever was highest and purest, that, Edith ever, as by instinct,
beheld as the wisest. She grew to him like a second conscience,
diviner than his own. Each, therefore, reflected virtue on the other,
as planet illumines planet.

All these years of probation then, which might have soured a love less
holy, changed into weariness a love less intense, had only served to
wed them more intimately soul to soul; and in that spotless union what
happiness there was! what rapture in word and glance, and the slight,
restrained caress of innocence, beyond all the transports love only
human can bestow!




CHAPTER IV.