Nor had it been made in vain. For Homer Wilson, in the moment of that supreme temptation, had risen superior to himself--had put aside his own strength to help her weakness--had overcome his passion with his love. He had uttered a passionate word or two of comprehension, offered an incoherent pledge of aid--comfort--approval--and then, stumbling out of the door, hastened away, disregarding, for her sake, the cry of "Homer--Homer!" that seemed to follow him.
Each of us has a wilderness and a temptation therein, although oft we pass through it, unrecking of the devils that attend us until they have stolen all they sought. Sometimes our wilderness is a perfumed garden, through which insidious devils dog our laggard footsteps. Sometimes it is a shaded pleasaunce, through which we tread with stately steps, unwitting of the derisive demons that smile as they mock our pageantry of pride. With retrospective agony, we turn to gaze upon the mirages of these scenes, as one views sunlit seas where wrecks have been, and cry aloud, "Here much precious treasure was lost!" But there are other wildernesses wherein we wander, consciously beset with Evil Spirits whose faces we know.
It was thus with Myron Holder. Her wilderness was indeed "a land of sand and thorns," thorns whose acrid sap was sucked from salt pools of tears. And the Spectre Demon that beset her there was the Devil of her own passion. By day it lingered round her steps, tempting her with suggestions of the Lethean draught its pleasures would bring, whispering to her how excusable she would be if she yielded to its allurements; for it did not fail to point out that she had no debt of kindness to repay with worthiness.
All day she fought against this Tempting One, who speedily enleagued all the other evils of her nature to aid him.
The battle raged fiercely, the bright light in her eyes, the flaming cheeks and trembling hands attesting the strife. One night, when the heat of summer made even the night winds sultry, when all nature was in the full height of its development, when the fields were deep in grass and the clover heavy with bloom--on such a night the door of a hop-clad cottage in Jamestown opened softly and closed as gently, and through the sleeping streets and out into the country a wild figure sped. She, for it was a woman, with flushed cheeks and loose-coiled hair, advanced a short distance along the highway, and then, swiftly climbing the fence, made her way diagonally across the fields of dew-drenched grass--across one field, another, and another--holding her slanting course as steadily and unswervingly as though she followed a beaten track.