Page 358 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

her out of the strange store of learning which his roving life
had won for him, how he could have confided to her his real
name, and perhaps purchased for her wealth and honour by
reason of it. Yet, he thought, she would not care for wealth
and honour; she would prefer a quiet life—a life of unassum-
ing usefulness, a life devoted to good deeds, to charity and
love. He could see her—in his visions—reading by a cheery
fireside, wandering in summer woods, or lingering by the
marge of the slumbering mid-day sea. He could feel—in his
dreams—her soft arms about his neck, her innocent kisses
on his lips; he could hear her light laugh, and see her sunny
ringlets float, back-blown, as she ran to meet him. Conscious
that she was dead, and that he did to her gentle memory no
disrespect by linking her fortunes to those of a wretch who
had seen so much of evil as himself, he loved to think of her
as still living, and to plot out for her and for himself impos-
sible plans for future happiness. In the noisome darkness
of the mine, in the glaring light of the noonday—dragging
at his loaded wagon, he could see her ever with him, her
calm eyes gazing lovingly on his, as they had gazed in the
boat so long ago. She never seemed to grow older, she never
seemed to wish to leave him. It was only when his misery
became too great for him to bear, and he cursed and blas-
phemed, mingling for a time in the hideous mirth of his
companions, that the little figure fled away. Thus dreaming,
he had shaped out for himself a sorrowful comfort, and in
his dream-world found a compensation for the terrible af-
fliction of living. Indifference to his present sufferings took
possession of him; only at the bottom of this indifference