Without the little chancel door I met Lily, who was lingering there knowing me to be within, and we spoke together.
‘Lily,’ I said, ‘I would ask you something. After all that has been, will you still take me for your husband, unworthy as I am?’
‘I promised so to do many a year ago, Thomas,’ she answered, speaking very low, and blushing like the wild rose that bloomed upon a grave beside her, ‘and I have never changed my mind. Indeed for many years I have looked upon you as my husband, though I thought you dead.’
‘Perhaps it is more than I deserve,’ I said. ‘but if it is to be, say when it shall be, for youth has left us and we have little time to lose.’
‘When you will, Thomas,’ she answered, placing her hand in mine.
Within a week from that evening we were wed.
And now my tale is done. God who gave me so sad and troublous a youth and early manhood, has blessed me beyond measure in my middle age and eld. All these events of which I have written at such length were done with many a day ago: the hornbeam sapling that I set beneath these windows in the year when we were married is now a goodly tree of shade and still I live to look on it. Here in the happy valley of the Waveney, save for my bitter memories and that longing for the dead which no time can so much as dull, year after year has rolled over my silvering hairs in perfect health and peace and rest, and year by year have I rejoiced more deeply in the true love of a wife such as few have known. For it would seem as though the heart-ache and despair of youth had but sweetened that most noble nature till it grew well nigh divine. But one sorrow came to us, the death of our infant child–for it was fated that I should die childless–and in that sorrow, as I have told, Lily shewed that she was still a woman. For the rest no shadow lay between us. Hand in hand we passed down the hill of life, till at length in the fulness of her days my wife was taken from me. One Christmas night she lay down to sleep at my side, in the morning she was dead. I grieved indeed and bitterly, but the sorrow was not as the sorrows of my youth had been, since age and use dull the edge of mortal griefs and I knew and know that we are no long space apart. Very soon I shall join Lily where she is, and I do not fear that journey. For the dread of death has left me at length, as it departs from all who live long enough and strive to repent them of their sins, and I am well content to leave my safety at the Gates and my heavenly comfort in the Almighty Hand that saved me from the stone of sacrifice and has guided me through so many perils upon this troubled earth.
And now to God my Father, Who holds me, Thomas Wingfield, and all I have loved and love in His holy keeping, be thanks and glory and praise! Amen.