Then and there, for the first time, as she sat enfolded by her husband's arm, Edna felt that she could thank him for the monument erected over her grandfather's grave.
The light faded slowly in the west, the pigeons ceased their fluttering about the belfry, and as he turned to quit the church, so dear to both, Mr. Murray stretched his hand toward the ivy-clad vault, and said solemnly: "I throw all mournful years behind me; and, by the grace of God, our new lives, commencing this hallowed day, shall make noble amends for the wasted past. Loving each other, aiding each other, serving Christ, through whose atonement alone I have been saved from eternal ruin. To Thy merciful guidance, O Father! we commit our future."
Edna looked reverently up at his beaming countenance, whence the shadows of hate and scorn had long since passed; and, as his splendid eyes came back to hers, reading in her beautiful, pure face all her love and confidence and happy hope, he drew her closer to his bosom, and laid his dark cheek on hers, saying fondly and proudly: "My wife, my life. Oh! we will walk this world, Yoked in all exercise of noble end, And so through those dark gates across the wild That no man knows. My hopes and thine are one; Accomplish thou my manhood, and thyself, Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me."