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 “And believing that, Lucy,” I said, “trusting in that, feeling confident of that——”

“Yes?”

“I ask you again to be my wife.”

“No, no,” she cried; “don't say it.”

“I do say it, Lucy, for I know that the blessing and not the curse will triumph.”

She had risen as if to fly from the room. “Don't tempt me,” she said.

I reached over her, and in spite of her resistance I put my arms about her neck and drew her back to her chair.

“Lucy,” I said, “I love you—you know that. With all my heart and soul and strength I love you. I will not think of losing you. Love is stronger than any curse. I don't want to think of you as one who is dead. I want your living heart to answer my heart. I have set my stake on your love, and I mean to keep it. Lucy, my beautiful Lucy, you belong to me, you are mine, my love, my wife! I have been waiting for you all these years, you have been waiting for me. You shall not bury yourself in a convent. I want you, my darling, you, you, you! I want the breath of your golden hair, the light of your blue eyes, the kiss of your red lips. Come to me, come to me, come to me!”

I had liberated her, and now stood facing her with my arms outstretched. She swayed a moment as one who was struggling hard, and then, trailing her hand along the table, my brave girl came to me—came to me with a faint cry that was half a sob and half a laugh, and fell upon my breast.

“Take me, then,” she said. “What I could not do for myself I feel that I can do for you.”

That night I telegraphed for my father. It all happened five and thirty years ago, and assuredly the blessing has thus far got the better of the curse.

Hope! It is the only true physician. There is no evil it may not conquer, for where it cannot destroy the disease, it can destroy the fear that makes the disease fearful. It is the one prophecy that is always the beginning of its own fulfilment; it is the one universal possession, and “the miserable have no other medicine.” No man is utterly lost who has not lost his hope. No ship is a derelict, though abandoned by her crew, while one living soul remains on board.

Ideas are eternal and immortal, omnipresent and omnipotent, and hope is the father of all ideas that have comforted and sustained and strengthened and governed us since the beginning of the world.