Most people age gradually and imperceptibly. To me old age had come of a
sudden--in a night, as it were; but with it, and suddenly also, the
resigned and cheerful acquiescence, the mild serenity, that are its
compensation and more.
My hope, my certainty to be one with Mary some day--that is my haven, my
heaven--a consummation of completeness beyond which there is nothing to
wish for or imagine. Come what else may, that is safe, and that is all I
care for. She was able to care for me, and for many other things
besides, and I love her all the more for it; but I can only care
for _her_.
Sooner or later--a year--ten years; it does not matter much. I also am
beginning to disbelieve in the existence of time.
That waking was the gladdest in my life--gladder even than the waking
in my condemned cell the morning after my sentence of death, when
another black shadow passed away--that of the scaffold.
Oh, Mary! What has she not done for me--what clouds has she not
dispelled!
When night came round again I made once more, step by step, the journey
from the Porte de la Muette to the Mare d'Auteuil, with everything the
same--the gay wedding-feast, the blue and silver courier, the merry
guests singing
_"Il etait un petit navire.
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