He came two steps nearer, looking in her face as one who seeks inspiration.
“I understand you now. It was all so sudden and terrible; forgive me for seeming desperate.”
She spoke very quietly, still looking at the grass.
“Promise me this,” she said, speaking more quickly—“ah! promise it me, for I would not change the past—no, not for my hope of heaven. It has taught me much—ah! how much you can never know. It has taught me the glory of being a woman. I can only bless you for it, my dearest, my dear—”
He stood before her, awed by a wonder that solemnized his whole being. He would have worshipped her save that his own shame forbade him. Only those who have beheld it can declare, the incomprehensible heroism of the love of a good woman.
Joan rose up suddenly and came very near to him.
“Have you not put your own heart under your feet?”
Joy had kindled on her face. She was happy—nay, exultant in her rapture of self-negation.
“Have I not sworn to you,” she said, “that I would not have had it otherwise? This has been my great awakening. Can you not understand, dear, that it is even something to live for a memory? I am content to be brave, not only for our sake, but for hers.”
“Your wife; she must never know of this; I have always remembered her honor. And I have held your heart, Gabriel; have I not?”
“We can triumph over the world, even by our renunciation.”
A gradual melancholy descended upon the hearts of both. Over the trees the sky was a golden canopy; the grass stood a deep mist about the foxgloves’ purple towers. There were no tears in the eyes of heaven. Only the sun came streaming through the trees.
“It is better thus,” said the miser’s daughter, “for there will be no shadow between us—no reproach.”
“If I am ever a man,” he answered her, “you will have re-created me.”
She came even nearer and stood very close to him, looking in his face. Her lips were parted, and there was such light in her eyes that she looked like one transfigured.
“No, no, on my lips—that I may remember it. Is it so great a thing to ask?”
Her hands went to his shoulders and he kissed her, holding her very close to him so that he felt the deep inrush of her breath. She lay in his arms a moment, looking in his face like one to whom death might seem sweet.