"
Alas, poor, deluded Richard! He did not know that to attain this
very object, Arthur had said what he did. It is true, he meant
every word he uttered. Matrimony and Edith Hastings must not be
thought of together. That were worse than madness, and his better
judgment warned him not to see too much of her--told him it was
better far to have that sightless man beside them when they met
together in a relation so intimate as the teacher bears to his
pupil. But Arthur would not listen; Edith was the first who for
years had really touched a human chord in his palsied heart, and
the vibration would not cease without a fiercer struggle than he
cared to make. It could do no harm, he said. He had been so
unhappy--was so unhappy now. Edith would, of course, be Richard's
wife; he had foreseen that from the very first--had predicted it
long ago, but ere the sacrifice was made, he was surely pardonable
if, for a little while, he gave himself to the bewildering
intoxication of basking in the sunshine of her eyes, of bending so
near to her that he could feel her fragrant breath, feel the warm
glow of her cheek, of holding those little hands a moment in his
own after he had ceased to teach her fingers how to guide the
pencil.
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