Presently Amy came back, with Wena following the coat and the slippers. “Darling Cradock, take her with you. She is so true and faithful. She will die if she is left here. And she will be such a comfort to you. Take her, Cradock, _for my sake_”.
The last entreaty settled it. Cradock took the coat and slippers, and carried Wena a little way, while she looked back wistfully at the churchyard, and Amy coaxed and patted her. They agreed on the road that Amy Rosedew should call upon Miss Garnet to restore the bracelet, and should mark how she received it; for Amy had now a strong suspicion (especially after what Cradock had seen, which now became intelligible) that Pearl knew more of poor Claytonʼs death than had been confessed to any one.
“My own Cradock, only think”, said Amy; “I have felt the strongest conviction, throughout, that you had nothing to do with it”.
“Sweetest one”, he replied, with a desperate longing to clasp her, but for Wena and the carpetbag, “that is only because you love me. Never say it again, dear; suspense, or even doubt about it, would kill me like slow poison”.
Amy shuddered at his tone, and thought how different men were: for a woman would live on the hope of it. But she remembered those words when the question arose, and rejoiced that he knew not the whole of it.
And now with the great drops in her eyes, she stood at her fatherʼs gate, to say good–bye to her love. She would not let him know that she cried; but Wena was welcome to know it, and Wena licked some tears off, and then quite felt for Amy.
“Good–bye, my own, my only”, said Cradock, for the twentieth time; even the latch of the gate was trembling; “God loves us, after all, Amy. Or, at any rate, He loves you”.
“And you, and you. Oh, Cradock! if He loves one, He must love both of us”.
“I believe He does”, said Cradock; “since I have seen you, I am sure of it. Now I care not for the world, except my world in you”.
“Dearest darling, life of my life, promise me not to fret again”.
“Fret, indeed, with you to love me! Give me just one more”.
Cradock, with a braver heart than he ever thought to own again (and yet with a hole and a string in it, for, after all, he did not own it), being begged away at last by the one who then went down on her knees, only to beg him back again,—that hapless yet most blessed fellow strode away as hard as he could, for fear of running back again; and the dusky trees closed round him, and he knew and loved every one of them. Then the latch of the gate for the last time clicked, when he was out of sight, and the laurustinus by the pier, beginning to bud for the winter, glistened in the moonlight with a silent storm of tears.