What possible bliss or reward could there ever be for her but
just this: to be allowed to watch and suffer with Oliver--to bring him
the invention, the patience, the healing divination of love? And if it
were not to be hers, then what remained was to go down into the arena,
where all that is ugliest and most piteous in life bleeds and gasps, and
throw herself blindly into the fight. Perhaps some heavenly voice might
still speak through it; perhaps, beyond its jar, some ineffable reunion
might dawn--
"First a peace out of pain--then a light--then thy breast!..."
She trembled through and through. Restraining herself, she rose, and
went to her locked desk, taking from it the closely written journal of
her father's life, which had now been for months the companion of her
thoughts, and of the many lonely moments in her days and nights. She
opened on a passage tragically familiar to her:
"It is an April day. Everything is very still and balmy.
clouds are low, yet suffused with sun. They seem to be
tangled among the olives, and all the spring green and
flowering fruit trees are like embroidery on a dim yet
shining background of haze, silvery and glistening in the
sun, blue and purple in the shadows.
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