"
These words came to Walter's mind and fixed the resolution wavering
there, and as his glance wandered from the gray tower to the
churchyard full of summer stillness, he said within himself,--
"This is the hardest struggle of my life, but I will conquer and
come out from the conflict master of myself at least, and like
Jamie, try to wait until the sunshine comes again, even if it only
shine upon me, dead like him."
It was no light task to leave the airy castles built by love and
hope, and go back cheerfully to the solitude of a life whose only
happiness for a time was in the memory of the past. But through the
weeks that bore one lover home, the other struggled to subdue his
passion, and be as generous in his sorrow as he would have been in
his joy.
It was no easy conquest; but he won the hardest of all victories,
that of self, and found in the place of banished pride and
bitterness a patient strength, and the one desire to be indeed more
generous than a brother to gentle Bess. He had truly, "cleft his
heart in twain and flung away the baser part."
A few days before the absent lover came, Walter went to Bess, and,
with a countenance whose pale serenity touched her deeply, he laid
his gift before her, saying,--
"I owe this all to Jamie; and the best use I can make of it is to
secure your happiness, as I promised him I'd try to do. Take it and
God bless you, Sister Bess."
"And you, Walter, what will your future be if I take this and go
away to enjoy it as you would have me?" Bess asked, with an
earnestness that awoke his wonder.
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