She only lived twenty years , but nineteen of them were so happy I 've never pitied her over much . She had everything that makes life worth living -- laughter and love , and at the last sorrow . James Milburn was her lover . It 's thirty-one years since his ship sailed out of that harbour and Alice waved him good-bye from this garden . He never came back . His ship was never heard of again . `` When Alice gave up hope that it would be , she died of a broken heart . They say there 's no such thing ; but nothing else ailed Alice . She stood at yonder gate day after day and watched the harbour ; and when at last she gave up hope life went with it . I remember the day : she had watched until sunset . Then she turned away from the gate . All the unrest and despair had gone out of her eyes . There was a terrible peace in them -- the peace of the dead . ` He will never come back now , Abel , ' she said to me . `` In less than a week she was dead . The others mourned her , but I did n't , master . She had sounded the deeps of living and there was nothing else to linger through the years for . My grief had spent itself earlier , when I walked this garden in agony because I could not help her . But often , on these long warm summer afternoons , I seem to hear Alice 's laughter all over this garden ; though she 's been dead so long . '' He lapsed into a reverie which I did not disturb , and it was not until another day that I learned of the other memory that he cherished .
He reverted XXXXX it suddenly as we sat again in the hop-vine arbour , looking at the glimmering radiance of the September sea .
In after into on over since that though to until