Then, all at once, with a throb of joy, it came to him to be thankful to God for the experience through which he had passed. After all it had not been taken from him to love with a love enduring, for though Kate had been snatched from him just at the moment of his possession, Marcia had been given him. Fool that he was! He had been blind to his own salvation. Suppose he had been allowed to go on and marry Kate! Suppose he had had her character revealed to him suddenly as those letters of hers to Harry Temple had revealed it--as it surely would have been revealed in time, for such things cannot be hid,--and she had been his wife! He shuddered. How he would have loathed her! How he loathed her now!
Strangely enough the realization of that fact gave him joy. He sprang up and waved his hands about in silent delight. He felt as if he must shout for gladness. Then he gravely knelt beside his chair and uttered an audible thanksgiving for his escape and the joy he had been given. Nothing else seemed fitting expression of his feelings.
There was one other question to consider--Marcia's feelings. She had always been kind and gentle and loving to him, just as a sister might have been. She was exceedingly young yet. Did she know, could she understand what it meant to be loved the way he was sure he could love a woman? And would she ever be able to love him in that way? She was so silent and shy he hardly knew whether she cared for him or not. But there was one thought that gave him unbounded joy and that was that she was his wife. At least no one else could take her from him. He had felt condemned that he had married her when his heart was heavy lest she would lose the joy of life, but all that was changed now. Unless she loved some one else surely such love as his could compel hers and finally make her as happy as a woman could be made.
A twinge of misgiving crossed his mind as he admitted the possibility that Marcia might love some one else. True, he knew of no one, and she was so young it was scarcely likely she had left any one back in her girlhood to whom her heart had turned when she was out of his sight. Still there were instances of strong union of hearts of those who had loved from early childhood. It might be that Marcia's sometime-sadness was over a companion of her girlhood.