I knew it was wrong--for Charlie's letter was still in the hand he
held. But it was glorious. Oh, how I revelled in the words I spoke!
They were simple and insignificant, I know,--but the wild breath of a
new-born love pulsed through them, and I could see by the kindled face,
though the dark was round about us, how his heart had leaped to
recognize their meaning. And then his own soul poured itself out in a
great gust of passion, pure and holy and resistless and triumphant; all
the strength and silentness and self-control that had provoked my
wonder through the days seemed now to be turned to leaping flame as he
told me--oh, so eloquently and yet so brokenly--of such a love as I had
never dreamed could be offered any maiden's heart.
"Can you see that steeple there?" he said, his voice hoarse with
feeling as he pointed to the distant town; "no, it's too dark--but I
can see it. I see it even in my dreams. It was under its shadow I met
you first, when your uncle and I were coming from the train. And I
knew then, Helen--in that instant I knew, and have known ever since,
that there was only one love for me--and it was you, my darling. And I
knew, I knew, who put the roses in that attic room of mine--and they
made the place like heaven to me ever since. And give me this,
Helen--surrender it to me," he went on passionately, his fingers
closing stealthily around the letter in my hand.
"I cannot," I cried, protesting, summoning what strength I might. "Oh,
I cannot--that's my letter to Charlie."
His clasp relaxed a little. "I know," he said; "that's why I want
it--and you cannot, you must not, send it now."
"But you told me, you told me more than once," I pleaded; "you said how
true I ought to be--you know you did," and I trembled lest his own
counsel should prevail.
He seemed to sink back a little--and awful silence reigned a moment.
"But I didn't know," he soon began, new earnestness in his voice, "I
only knew then that I loved you--and I could have given you up, I
really could--but I didn't know then that you belonged to me--to me, my
darling," his voice rising to the masterful with the words; "I didn't
know then that God meant you for me, and that that was why He led my
steps across the sea. I could have given you up--I swear I could," he
cried almost fiercely, "if it had meant nothing but a wounded life for
me--but when it's you--oh, when it's you, my darling, when your life
would be wounded and broken too. For you love me, my own," and his
voice had the tenderest strain that ever filled woman's heart with
rapture; "don't you, Helen?" he went pleadingly on; "oh, say you do--or
tell me, tell me, Helen, if you don't."
Then the silence of death reigned about us both, though heaven knows I
tried my best to break it, but could make no sound. And then,
then--with all the stealth of love and of a strong man's will--he
gently drew the letter from my hand, my heart fluttering till it hurt,
and without a word he tore it up, slowly, noiselessly, almost
reverently, into a hundred pieces, and a moment later they fluttered
through the dark out onto the bosom of the silent river.
I was like one in a dream, unspeaking still. Perhaps I had a great
sense of weakness, even of wrong. But I do not think so. I only knew
that life was changed to me in that wonderful hour, and that I cared
nothing for the future, all that it might bring, all my unfitness for
it. I only knew that I had found at last what my poor, tired,
frivolous heart had been seeking in alien ways for long. And I knew
that love's great lie, so desperately cherished, had retreated before
Love's great Reality. And when he took me in his arms, so strong, so
tight, I shut my eyes and rested there; and when he kissed me--only
once--I prayed, a swift, wonderful prayer. And I knew at last that
love was holy, stainless, and that God was good.