For a time word came from him. Then I
was taken ill and couldn't answer his letters, and a cousin of my own,
who had tried to win my love, did a wicked thing. He wrote a letter to
him and told him I was dyin', and that there was no use of farther words
from him. And never again did word come to me from him. But I waited,
my heart sick with longin' and full of hate for the memory of the man
who, when struck with death, told me of the cruel deed he had done
between us two."
She paused, as she had to do several times during the recital, through
weariness or pain; but, after a moment, proceeded. "One day, one
beautiful day, when the flowers were like love to the eye, and the larks
singin' overhead, and my thoughts goin' with them as they swam until they
were lost in the sky, and every one of them a prayer for the lad livin'
yet, as I hoped, somewhere in God's universe--there rode a gentleman down
Farcalladen Rise. He stopped me as I walked, and said a kind good-day to
me; and I knew when I looked into his face that he had word for me--the
whisperin' of some angel, I suppose, and I said to him as though he had
asked me for it, 'My name is Mary Callen, sir.'
"At that he started, and the colour came quick to his face; and he said:
'I am Sir Duke Lawless. I come to look for Mary Callen's grave.
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