Page:The Chimes.djvu/135

“How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do? She has been to me again!

“Again!” cried Meg, clasping her hands, “O, does she think of me so often! Has she been again!”

“Twenty times again,” said Richard. “Margaret, she haunts me. She comes behind me in the street, and thrusts it in my hand. I hear her foot upon the ashes when I’m at my work (ha, ha! that an’t often), and before I can turn my head, her voice is in my ear, saying, ‘Richard, don t look round. For Heaven’s love, give her this!’ She brings it where I live; she sends it in letters; she taps at the window and lays it on the sill. What can I do? Look at it!” He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked the money it enclosed.

“Hide it,” said Meg. “Hide it! When she comes again, tell her, Richard, that I love her in my soul. That I never lie down to sleep, but I bless her, and pray for her. That, in my solitary work, I never cease to have her in my thoughts. That she is with me, night and day. That if I died to-morrow, I would remember her with my last breath. But, that I cannot look upon it!”

He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the purse together, said with a kind of drowsy thoughtfulness:

“I told her so. I told her so, as plain as words could speak. I’ve taken this gift back and left it at her door, a dozen times since then. But when she came at last, and stood before me, face to face, what could I do?”