Mr. Denison's funeral had already taken place some weeks. Nearly every
day Lucy had been seen dressed in deep mourning, crossing to New
Jersey. In her firm serious face decision showed itself as, hour after
hour she bent over big ledgers, separating debts from assets, while the
book-keeper stood by her side to offer her any assistance in his power.
After a long and searching examination, it became evident that the firm
need not absolutely declare itself insolvent, since the great banking
house in Wall Street whose reported failure had brought the catastrophe
to the Denison household, had recovered itself, thanks to a favorable
turn in the stock-market, and promised to reimburse all its creditors.
The Martin family, after all the severe trials it had undergone in New
York, had moved back to New Jersey. Through the proved usefulness of
old Martin, who now labored with redoubled eagerness to produce new and
unheard of combinations of color, the prestige of the factory, which
had sunk low in the silk market, now began to rise again to its former
height.
Lucy and her mother, selling their fine house on Fifth Avenue, had also
moved to New Jersey, in the vicinity of the works, since Lucy insisted
upon superintending everything herself. She trembled with impatience
and joy when Eugene's fair curly head was seen approaching the house.
On the expiration of her year of mourning she gave her hand to the man
to whom her heart has long been given.
The happy couple spent their honeymoon in Italy. The high ideals which
had once inflamed the young painter's heart, and later had threatened
to die out in comfortless annihilation, were destined at last to take
shape, and to stand before his enchanted eyes in all their beautiful
reality. At last he was able, hand in hand with his beloved, to admire
the art treasures of Rome, the Vatican, with its immortal paintings by
Raphael, Michael Angelo and Paul Veronese. All that they had long known
through copies and engravings were now before them in the original, and
filled them with delight.
Eugene availed himself of the permission given to artists three days
in the week to make copies in the Vatican galleries. Standing at their
easels, Eugene and Lucy painted side by side, as they had once done at
the Art School, with unbounded happiness beaming in their eyes. Among
the masterpieces which represented the highest ideals of art, Lucy
realized more and more with a palpitating heart, the omnipotence of
true love.