Hand and Ring (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...dismay. As if released, Imogene rose to her feet and surveyed the sweet and ingenuous countenance uplifted to her own, with a look of faint recognition of the womanly sympathy it conveyed. "Helen," she resumed, "you are happy. Don't stay here with me, but go where there are cheerfulness and hope." "But I cannot while you suffer so. I love you, Imogene. Would you drive me away from your side when you are so unhappy? You don't care for me as I do for you or you could not do it." 301 "Helen " The deep tone made the sympathetic little bride-elect quiver. "Helen, some griefs are best borne alone. Only a few hours now and I shall know the worst. Leave me." But the gentle little creature was not to be driven away. She only clung the closer and pleaded the more earnestly: "Tell me, tell me " The reiteration of this request was too much for the pallid woman before her. Laying her two hands on the shoulders of this child, she drew back and looked her earnestly in the face. "Helen," she cried, "what do you know of earthly anguish? A petted child, the favorite of happy fortune, you have been kept from evil as from a blight. None of the annoyances of life have been allowed to enter your path, much less its griefs and sins. Terror with you is but a name, remorse an unknown sensation. Even your love has no depths in it such as suffering gives. Yet, since you do love, and love well, perhaps you can understand something of what a human soul can endure who sees its only hope and only love tottering above a gulf too horrible for words to describe