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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 by Various
page 100 of 292 (34%)
solitary planet, admitting no dance of satellites within its orbit.

"At last the long silence was broken. I heard that Blanche was free,
and, with mingled haste and hesitation, I prepared to seek her. The
ideal should be tested, I said to myself, by the actual, and if proved
a deceit, then was all faith a mockery, all promise and premonition a
glittering lie. As soon as winds and waves could carry me, I was in
Louisiana, and in the very dwelling and at the same hour which had
witnessed our parting. Again was it a soft summer evening. The same
faint golden rays painted the sun's farewell, and the same silver moon
looked eloquent response, as on the evening breeze floated sweet
remembered odors of jessamine and orange. Again the ideal beauty of the
lovely portrait met my gaze and seemed to melt into my heart; and
once more, softly, lightly, fell a footstep, and the Presence by which
I had never been forsaken, which I could never forsake, stood before me
in 'palpable array of sense.' It was indeed the living Blanche, calm
and stately as of old,--no longer radiant with the flush of youth, but
serene in tenderest grace and sweet reserve, and beautiful through the
lustre of the inner light of soul. She uttered a faint cry of joy, and
placing her trembling hand in mine, we stood transfixed and silent,
with riveted gaze, reading in each other's eyes feelings too sacred for
speech, too deep for smiles or tears. In that long, burning look, it
seemed as if the emotions of each were imparted to the other, not in
slow succession as through words and sentences, but daguerreotyped or
electrotyped in perfected form upon the conscious understanding. No
language could have made so clear and comprehensible the revelation of
that all-centring, unconquerable love which thrilled our inmost being,
and pervaded the atmosphere around us with subtile and tremulous
vibrations. In that moment all time was fused and forgotten. There was
for us no Past, no Future; there was only the long-waited,
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