* * * * * And late that night he wrote to Theodora.
"My darling," he began. "I must call you that even though I have no
right to. My darling--I want to tell you these my thoughts to-night,
before I see you to-morrow as an ordinary guest at your dinner-party. I
want you to know how utterly I love you, and how I am going to do my
best with the rest of my life to show you how I honor you and revered
you as an angel, and something to live for and shape my aims to be
worthy of the recollection of that hour of bliss you granted me. Dearest
love, does it not give you joy--just a little--to remember those moments
of heaven? I do not regret anything, though I am all to blame, for I
knew from the beginning I loved you, and just where love would lead us.
But it was not until I saw the peep into your soul, when you never
reproached me, that I began to understand what a brute I had been--how
unworthy of you or your love. Darling, I don't ask you to try and forget
me--indeed, I implore you not to do so. I think and believe you are of
the nature which only loves once in a lifetime, and I am world-worn and
experienced enough to know I have never really loved before. How
passionately I do now I cannot put into words. So let us keep our love
sacred in our hearts, my darling, and the knowledge of it will comfort
and soothe the anguish of separation. Beloved one, I am always thinking
of you, and I want to tell you my vision of heaven would be to possess
you for my wife. My happiest dream will always be that you are there--at
Bracondale--queen of my home and my heart, darling. My darling! But
however it may be, whether you decide to chase away every thought of me
or not, I want you to know I will go on worshipping you, and doing my
utmost to serve you with my life.--For ever and ever your devoted
lover."
And then he signed it "Hector," and not "Bracondale."
The widow had promised to give it into Theodora's own hand on the
morrow.
He added a postscript: "I want you to meet my mother and my sister in London. Will you let me
arrange it? I think you will like Anne. And oh, more than all I want you
to come to Bracondale. Write me your answer that I may have your words
to keep always."