Gordon took a long breath. In the ardor of his mental independence he
seemed to be seeking some fit word to epitomize his deduction.
"It is a fetish!" he said, earnestly. "It represents the
past--privilege--superstition--injustice, as I have already told you."
"Oh, no," she murmured, "it cannot be simply that. You forget that I
am a woman. You do not realize what the church means to me."
"I remember that you are an American woman."
The remark evidently impressed her. She pondered it briefly before she
said, "I am, and I know how much that ought to mean. I wish to be
worthy of it." She appeared troubled; then putting her hand to her
head she rose, seeking instinctively an end of the interview. "I must
think it over. You must not talk to me any more to-night. I did not
realize how weak I am." Suddenly she exclaimed, "Ah, Gordon, you do
not understand all! I forsook the church once in the pride of my
heart. I wandered among false gods, and it took me back without a word
of rebuke for my independence. I must do what is right this time--what
is really right--at any cost."
As she stood in the shadow, erect and piteous, but with the aspect of
spiritual aspiration in her voice and figure, stalwart as he was in his
sense of righteousness, he thought of Marguerite in the prison scene
when Faust implores her to fly with him.
"Forgive me," he said, "for having tired and harassed you. It was my
love for you that led me on." He spoke with tenderness, and under the
spell of his mood dropped on one knee beside her and looked up in her
face.
"You may tell me about that before you go," she whispered, like one
spellbound.
"It is not much to tell--except that it means everything to me. It has
grown from a tiny seed, little by little, until it has become the
harvest and the glory of my manhood. Ah, Constance, we love each
other. How much that means. It sets the seal of beauty on this
commonplace world. It will transfigure life for both of us."
She started. "The seal of beauty?" she murmured, as to herself. "If I
were but sure of that! What I fear is lest I mar the beauty of the
world, and so sin."
"It was my mother's hope that we should marry," he said, reverting to
concrete ground.
"I think so," she answered, faintly, pressing his hand.
"And her idea was to do right."
"I know."