My letters gave Edith some material for forming a distinct idea of my personality, and both together sufficed to make the sad old story very real to her.

She used to tell her parents, half jestingly, that she would never marry till she found a lover like Julian West, and there were none such nowadays.
Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl whose mind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, and would have had no serious consequence but for the discovery that morning of the buried vault in her father's garden and the revelation of the identity of its inmate.

For when the apparently lifeless form had been borne into the house, the face in the locket found upon the breast was instantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett, and by that fact, taken in connection with the other circumstances, they knew that I was no other than Julian West.

Even had there been no thought, as at first there was not, of my resuscitation, Mrs.Leete said she believed that this event would have affected her daughter in a critical and life-long manner.

The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny, involving her fate with mine, would under all circumstances have possessed an irresistible fascination for almost any woman.
Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and from the first seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find a special solace in her company, she had been too quick in giving her love at the first sign of mine, I could now, her mother said, judge for myself.