We had truly
discovered the fountain of perennial youth, and had drunk thereof! And
in our dream we always felt even younger than we looked; we had the
buoyancy of children and their freshness.
Often had we talked of death and separation and the mystery beyond, but
only as people do for whom such contingencies are remote; yet in reality
time flew as rapidly for us as for others, although we were less
sensible of its flight.
There came a day when Mary's exuberant vitality, so constantly
overtaxed, broke down, and she was ill for a while; although that did
not prevent our meeting as usual, and there was no perceptible
difference in her when we met. But I am certain that in reality she was
never quite the same again as she had been, and the dread possibility of
parting any day would come up oftener in our talk; in our minds, only
too often, and our minds were as one.
She knew that if I died first, everything I had brought into "Magna sed
Apta" (and little it was) would be there no more; even to my body, ever
lying supine on the couch by the enchanted window, it she had woke by
chance to our common life before I had, or remained after I had been
summoned away to my jail.
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