Between Snow and Fire — page 216: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

7 2 Zz Fi ? —_ =< 306). 5" _. : a : —_— ro =, a : r I) : AS f 3 ge Syl : ‘s 7, 4 2 , 2 ae as = = “i c ~— —— in ot é o c ‘ bs - 4 g Se = -* relics—a glove, a boot, a hat, even an old pipe—when we know we shall never see the owner again, parted perhaps by circumstances, by distance, by death. Do not such things seem verily to speak—and to speak eloquently—to bring before our eyes, to sound within our ears, the vision, the voice of one whom we shall never behold again? Ah! do they not! | Standing for the first time alone in that room, Eanswyth felt as though her heart had been broken afresh. She fell prone among those poor and worthless relics, pressing them passionately to her lips, while her tears fell like rain. If ever her lover’s spirit could come back to her, surely it would be in that room. “O Eustace, my darling, my first and only love!” mur- mured the stricken creature, lying face to the very floor in the agony of her grief. “Come to me from the shadowy spirit land! O God, send him to me, that I may look upon him once more! ”’ The shadows deepened within the room. Raising her head she gazed around, and the expression of pitiable eager- ness on the white drawn face was fearful to behold. “Oh, dear Lord, if our love is so wicked are we not pun- ished enough! O God, show him to me again if but for amoment! The ghastliest terrors of the grave are sweet- ness to me, if I may but see him once—my dear dead love! Eustace, Eustace! You cannot come to me, but I shall soon goto you! Is it a loving God or a fiend that tortures us so? Ah-h!” Her heart-broken paroxysm could go no,further. No apparition from another world met her eyes as they strove to penetrate the deepening shadows as though fully expect- ing one. The exhaustion that supervened was beneficial to a degree, in that it acted as a safety valve to her fearfully overwrought brain. Her very mind was in danger. For nearly a fortnight has Eanswyth thus dwelt, and so far from beginning to tire of her solitude, she hugs it closer to her. She has received visits from the Hostes and other friends who, reckoning that a couple of days of solitude would sicken her of it altogether, had come with the object of inducing her to return to the settlement. Besides, Christ- mas was close at hand and, her bereavement notwithstanding, it did not somehow seem good that she should spend that (E(0)