“'Where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people.”' She murmured it with a broken little laugh that was a sob.
Even then he did not take her in his arms. The habit of reverence for her was of many years' growth and not to be broken in an instant.
“I've been sure ever since the day of our first talk on the _Bellingham._”
Still he fought the joy that flooded him. “I must tell you the truth so that you won't idealize me... and the situation. I am enlisted in this fight for life. Where it will lead me I don't know. But I must follow the road I see. You will lose your friends. They will think me a crank, an enemy to society; and they will think you demented. But even for you I can't turn back.”
A tender glow was in her deep eyes. “If I did not know that do you think I would marry you?”
“But you've always had the best things. You've never known what it is to be poor.”
“No, I've never had the best things, never till I knew you, dear. I've starved for them and did not know how to escape the prison I was in. Then you came... and you showed me. The world is at my feet now. Not the world you meant, of idleness and luxury and ennui... but that better one of the spirit where you and I shall walk together as comrades of all who work and laugh and weep.”
“That I can make you happy. After all it's a chance.”
“We all live on a chance. I'll take mine beside the man I love. There is one way under heaven by which men may be saved. I'm going to walk that way with you, dear.”
Jeff threw away the reins of a worldly wise prudence.
“For ever and ever, Alice,” he cried softly, shaken to his soul.
As their lips met the lark throbbed a betrothal song.
They went slowly through the wet ferns, hand in hand. It was amazingly true that he had won her, but Jeff could scarce believe the miracle. More than once he recurred to it.
“You saw what no other young woman of your set in Verden did, the human in me through my vagabondage. But why? There's nothing in my appearance to attract.”
“Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck,” she laughed. “And I won't have you questioning my taste, sir. I've always thought you very good-looking, if you must have it.”
“If you're as far gone as that!” His low laughter rang out to meet hers, for no reason except the best of reasons--that they walked alone with love through a world wonderful.