Page 47 of Love Eternal


  Godfrey went to the little house at Hampstead where he used to livewhile he was studying as a lad, for here Mrs. Parsons was waiting forhim. Then for the first time he gave way and they wept in each other'sarms.

  "We were too happy, Nurse," he said.

  "Yes," she answered, "love like hers wasn't for this world, and morethan once she said to me that she never expected to see you again inthe flesh, though I thought she meant it was you who would go, as mighthave been expected. Stop, I have something for you."

  Going to a desk she produced from it a ring, that with the turquoisehearts; also a canvas-covered book.

  "That's her diary," she said, "she used to write in it every day."

  That night Godfrey read many beautiful and sacred things in this diary.From it he learned that the shock of his supposed death had causedIsobel to miscarry and made her ill for some time, though underneaththe entries about her illness and the false news of his death she hadwritten:

  "He is not dead. I _know_ that he is not dead."

  Afterwards there were some curious sentences in which she spokejoyfully of having seen him in her sleep, ill, but living and going torecover, "at any rate for a while," she had added.

  On the very day of her death she had made this curious note:

  "I feel as though Godfrey and I were about to be separated for a while, and yet that this separation will really bring us closer together. I am strangely happy. Great vistas seem to open to my soul and down them I walk with Godfrey for ever and a day, and over them broods the Love of God in which are embodied and expressed all other loves. Oh! how wrong and foolish was I, who for so many years rejected that Love, which yet will not be turned away and in mercy gave me sight and wisdom and with these Godfrey, from whose soul my soul can never more be parted. For as I told you, my darling, ours is the Love Eternal. Remember it always, Godfrey, if ever your eyes should see these words upon the earth. Afterwards there will be no need for memory."