The Burden of the Strong

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX BY RIGHT OF THE LAW Six weeks had passed since the arrival of Mrs. Hamilton at the Ocean View Sanatorium, and she had only now been pronounced sufficiently recovered to return to her home. During all this time, she had seen none of the members of her family, the doctor having ordered absolute quiet and rest. Neither had she been permitted to receive messages from them, except such as could be transmitted through her physician. To-day, for the first time since her arrival, a letter had been handed her. It was from Mr. Forsyth, and the first communication of any kind she had received from him, Mrs. Harland having informed him of the serious condition of her daughter, and also of the impossibility of reaching her either by personal interview or by letter. The evening before, unable longer to endure the suspense the long silence had entailed, he had called at the sanatorium; and having been informed of the improvement in Mrs. Hamilton's condition, he decided to write at once and ask permission to call. Now that the opportunity of meeting her again was at hand, he experienced a sense of foreboding ill, not knowing what opposing influences might have been at work during the long separation. As for himself, his feelings had undergone no change, except to become more intensely alive than ever before to the demands of his heart. Love had tarried long before knocking at his door, for he was now approaching his fortieth year. Gifted with a nature in which the physical and the spiritual balanced equally all the tangent impulses of an imaginative temperament, his heart and head had only now attested to the supremacy of love's claim. In Julia Hamilton, he had found the embodiment of his ideal, the one woman in all the world whom he could truly love, and so h...