Part 26 (2/2)
Lifting their gaze from the open grave, their eyes met in a swift flash of joy, while a half-puzzled look of delight and recognition struggled over their faces; then, bounding lightly over the open grave, Clifford whispered in a tone of unspeakable love and yearning:--
”Oh, Ivarene, my sweetheart of long ago, we meet at last!”
”Then it is as I have dreamed--and you are Bruce!” she answered, with a sob of joy, while springing into his outstretched arms.
”Yes, love, I am convinced that we meet again after all these years of waiting. Though to the world we may be only Mora and Clifford, yet, darling, to each other we will ever be Ivarene and Bruce,” he replied, while raining kisses upon her upturned, radiant face.
Ah! how can I tell of the serene wedding morn that marked that happy day when Clifford and Mora paced back and forth on the sunlighted terrace at the Stone Corral, now no longer a modest cottage, but a stately though quaint mansion of red sandstone. The tender, blue haze of Indian summer brooded over the valley, where the fields of wheat shone dewy and green, and the newly-mown meadows stretched away like a verdant carpet far out onto the highlands, miles upon miles--all their own. The marble fountain threw a glittering sheen of silver high in the air, while the breeze swept the blossom-laden tendrils that trailed down the showy vases, and swayed the limbs of the old elm to and fro about the gables of the elegant home.
”Oh, Ivarene, dear love! how strange it is to take up the thread of our happiness on the spot, almost where our lives went out in such black despair just twenty-six years ago! I know why you wish to have our bridal here, darling; for it was here, at the Old Corral, that our former trials overwhelmed us, and it is doubly sweet to begin happiness again on this spot.”
”Bruce, my darling, I can remember nothing of the old life and its trials, that ended at our grave on Antelope b.u.t.te; but my love for you--ah! that can never perish. It has survived even the horrors of that lonesome tomb. It is strange we only recognized each other at that empty grave; but I had always felt such a longing to meet some one, that now I know it was the spirit within me crying dumbly for you; and oh! the unutterable content when at length I met you, and the joy of only being with you now,--it is more than Eden!”
”Sweet Ivarene, do you ever ponder on what eternity means for us, now we have its secret?--a limitless succession of life in all its phases; that the grave is only the door to life again, when we can choose another birth--pa.s.sing through all the freshening scenes of infancy and youth; growing up again as boy and girl; seeking each other out for another union like this, where we shall always recognize each other, but forget the old life,--it is _this_ which gives hope and zest to this happy day; for we know that we shall really never be separated.”
”We will pa.s.s a happy life together, my love; and from out our abundance we can sweeten the lives of many others who have not been blessed with great riches,” he continued, in a tender tone.
”Yes, dear Bruce, and the treasure of Monteluma should be dedicated to charity alone, for we have enough without it,” she replied; then, pointing to a newly-sodded grave at the foot of the lawn--a mound that was marked by a marble slab on which only was engraved,
”BRUCE AND IVARENE,”
she continued, with a smile of ineffable peace on her beaming face: ”That is for the eyes of the world, dear Bruce; but we know that we are they, only masquerading under the names of Mora and Clifford.”
At that moment Maud, Ralph, Hugh, and Grace came on to the terrace above, and Hugh, in a voice husky with emotion, said:--
”Come, Mora and Clifford, the minister waits.”
Tarrying a moment, while the others moved on along the terrace, the happy pair stood gazing out over the tranquil valley, then, drawing aside her veil, which trailed liked a mist down over her robe of glistening satin, white as a snow-drift, she raised a radiant face to his, and said:--
”My Bruce, we live again--we live again!”
Stooping, while their lips met, he murmured:--
”Yes, Ivarene, dear bride, and this--oh! this is heaven!”
A moment more, and they had disappeared within the flower-wreathed doorway.
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