"None but you, John. There never has been and there never shall be another."
When John's consciousness returned he said, "Dorothy, can you love such a fool as I?"
"That I can and that I do with all my heart," she returned.
"And can you forgive me for this last fault--for doubting you?"
"That is easily done," she answered softly, "because doubt is the child of love."
"N-o-o," she answered somewhat haltingly; "but I--I am a woman."
"And a woman's heart is the home of faith," said John, reverentially.
"Y-e-s," she responded, still not quite sure of her ground. "Sometimes it is the home of too much faith, but faith, like virtue, is its own reward. Few persons are false to one who gives a blind, unquestioning faith. Even a poor degree of honor responds to it in kind."
"Dorothy, I am so unworthy of you that I stand abashed in your presence," replied John.
"No, you are not unworthy of me. We don't look for unmixed good in men," said the girl with a mischievous little laugh. Then seriously: "Those virtues you have are so great and so strong, John, that my poor little virtues, while they perhaps are more numerous than yours, are but weak things by comparison. In truth, there are some faults in men which we women do not--do not altogether dislike. They cause us--they make us--oh, I cannot express exactly what I mean. They make us more eager perhaps. A too constant man is like an overstrong sweet: he cloys us. The faults I speak of hurt us; but we thrive on them. Women enjoy pain now and then. Malcolm was telling me the other day that the wise people of the East have a saying: 'Without shadow there can be no light; without death there can be no life; without suffering there can be no joy.' Surely is that saying true of women. She who suffers naught enjoys naught. When a woman becomes passive, John, she is but a clod. Pain gives us a vent--a vent for something, I know not what it is; but this I know, we are happier for it."
"I fear, Dorothy, that I have given you too much 'vent,' as you call it," said John.
"No, no," she replied. "That was nothing. My great vent is that I can pour out my love upon you, John, without stint. Now that I know you are mine, I have some one whom I can deluge with it. Do you know, John, I believe that when God made me He collected together the requisite portions of reason, imagination, and will,--there was a great plenty of will, John,--and all the other ingredients that go to make a human being. But after He had gotten them all together there was still a great space left to be filled, and He just threw in an immensity of love with which to complete me. Therefore, John, am I not in true proportion. There is too much love in me, and it wells up at times and overflows my heart. How thankful I should be that I may pour it upon you and that it will not be wasted. How good you are to give me the sweet privilege."