Then he commenced again: "And
when you feel yourself broken up like they are in the spring,
listen and you'll hear me whispering, 'Poor Richard! I pity you so
much, and I'll kiss your tears away.'"
Did he hear her? hear Nina whispering comfort to his poor bruised
heart? We cannot tell. We only know he bent his ear lower, as if
to catch the faintest breath; but alas! there were no tears to
kiss away. The blind eyes could not weep--they were too hot, too
dry for that--and blood-red rings of fire danced before them as
they did when Nina came to him with the startling news that Miggie
was dead in the Deering woods.
Victor was reading now about these woods and the scene enacted
there, and Richard understood it all, even to the reason why Edith
had persisted in being his wife. The deepest waters run silently,
it is said, and so, perhaps, the strongest heart when crushed to
atoms lies still as death, and gives outwardly no token of its
anguish. True it is that Richard neither moaned, nor moved, nor
spoke; only the head drooped lower, while the arms clung tightly
to the fancied form he held, as if between himself and Nina,
wherever she was that dreary day, there was a connecting link of
sympathy which pervaded his whole being, and so prevented him from
dying outright as he wished he could.
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