"Yes, stop. That is right, Stephen. Remorse grows maudlin when
it goes into words," laughing again at his astounded look.
He took her hand,--a dewy, healthy hand,-- the very touch of it
meant action and life.
"What if I say, then," he said, earnestly, "that I do not find my
angel perfect, be the fault mine or hers? The child Margret,
with her sudden tears, and laughter, and angry heats, is gone,--I
killed her, I think,--gone long ago. I will not take in place of
her this worn, pale ghost, who wears clothes as chilly as if she
came from the dead, and stands alone, as ghosts do."
She stood a little way off, her great brown eyes flashing with
tears. It was so strange a joy to find herself cared for, when
she had believed she was old and hard: the very idle jesting made
her youth and happiness real to her. Holmes saw that with his
quick tact. He flung playfully a crimson shawl that lay there
about her white neck.
"My wife must suffer her life to flush out in gleams of colour
and light: her cheeks must hint at a glow within, as yours do
now. I will have no hard angles, no pallor, no uncertain memory
of pain in her life: it shall be perpetual summer."
He loosened her hair, and it rolled down about the bright,
tearful face, shining in the red fire-light like a mist of tawny
gold.
"I need warmth and freshness and light: my wife shall bring them
to me. She shall be no strong-willed reformer, standing alone: a
sovereign lady with kind words for the world, who gives her hand
only to that man whom she trusts, and keeps her heart and its
secrets for me alone.
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