"
Like an erring, but penitent child, Edith crept into his lap, but
did not look into the sightless eyes. She dared not, lest the gaze
should wring from her quivering lips the wild words trembling
there, "Forgive me, Richard, but I loved Arthur first." So she hid
her face in his bosom, and said to him,
"I do not love you, Richard, as you do me. It came too sudden, and
I had not thought about it. But I love you dearly, very dearly,
and I want so much to be your wife. I shall rest so quietly when I
have you to lean upon, you to care for. I am young for you, I
know, but many such matches have proved happy, and ours assuredly
will. You are so good, so noble, so unselfish, that I shall be
happy with you. I shall be a naughty, wayward wife, I fear, but
you can control me, and you must. We'll go to Europe sometime,
Richard, and visit Bingen on the Rhine, where the little baby girl
fell in the river, and the brave boy Richard jumped after her.
Don't you wish you'd let me die? There would then have been no bad
black-haired Edith lying in your lap, and torturing you with fears
that she does not love you as she ought.
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