We have
followed her in journeyings often, in perils of sea, in perils of
robbers, in perils of the heathen, in perils of the wilderness, in
weariness and sorrow, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, and
besides these things that were without, bearing those secret sorrows--
"my beloved secret cross," she called them--which are known only to
the soul and its God. We have seen all this, the full, perfect glorious
life which she lived by the side of the man she loved; in the brief
survey of the few broken years left to her on earth, we shall henceforth
see her alone--alone, yet not alone, for the Divine love went with her,
and with her also was ever present the memory of an earthly love, a
love purified and holy, growing nearer and nearer to the love of the
perfect day.
If we were to search the wide world over, ransack history, dive deep into
the annals of the past, I doubt if there would be found any more perfect
example of unselfish love than that which is exemplified in the wedded
life of this woman. With her it was always "Richard only." It is with
this thought in our minds that we approach her crowning act of self-
sacrifice, her last supreme offering on the altar of love. I refer to
the act whereby she deliberately sacrificed the provision her husband
had made for her, and faced poverty, and the contumely of her enemies,
for the sake of his fair memory.
Lady Burton's first act after her husband's death was to lock up his
manuscripts and papers to secure them against all curious and prying
eyes--a wise and necessary act under the circumstances, and one which
was sufficient to show that, great though her grief was, it did not rob
her for one moment of her faculties.
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