Youth Challenges Part 23

But I am giving up more than he can ever return to me with all his money.... Money can't buy love. It can't give back to me that happiness I would have known with you, working for you, suffering with you, helping you. It's my chance.... You must see. You must believe the truth. I couldn't bear it if you didn't--if you didn't see that I am throwing away my happiness and giving myself--just for the Cause. That I am giving all of myself--not to a quick, merciful death. That wouldn't be hard.... But to years of misery, to a lifetime of suffering. Knowing I love you, I will have to go to him, and be his wife, and pretend--pretend--day after day, year after year, that I love him.... I'll have to deceive him. I'll have to hold his love and make it stronger, and I'll--I'll come to loathe him. Does that sound easy?

Could money buy that? Look into your heart and see...."

He strode to her, and his hands fell heavily on her shoulders, his black, blazing eyes burned into hers.

"You love me--you haven't lied to me?" he demanded, hoa.r.s.ely.

"I love you."

"Then, by G.o.d! you're mine, and I'll have you. He sha'n't buy you away if I have to kill him. You're mine, do you hear?--MINE!"

"Who do you belong to?" she asked. "If I demanded that you give up your work, abandon the Cause, would you do it for me?"

"No."

"You belong to the Cause--not to me.... I belong to the Cause, too. ...

Body and soul I belong to it. What am I to you but a girl, an incident?

Your duty lies toward all those men. Your work is to help them.... Then you should give me willingly; if I hesitate you should try to force me to do this thing-for it will help. What other thing could do what it will do? Think! THINK!... THINK!"

"You're mine.... He has everything else. His kind take everything else from us. Now they want our wives. They sha'n't have them.... He sha'n't have them.... He sha'n't have you."

"It is for me to say," she replied, gently. "I'm so sorry--so sorry--if it hurts you. I'm sorry any part of the suffering and sorrow must fall on you. If I could only bear it alone! If I can help, it's my right to help, and to give.... Don't make it harder. Oh, don't make it harder!"

He flung her from him roughly. "You're like all of them.... Wealth dazzles you. You fear poverty.... Softness, luxuries--you all--you women--are willing to sell your souls for them."

"Did my mother sell her soul for luxuries? If she did, where are they?

Did your mother sell her soul for them?... Have the wives of all the men who have worked and suffered and been trampled on for the Cause sold their souls?... You're bitter. I--I am sorry--so sorry. If you care for me as I do for you--I--I know how bitterly hard it will be--to--give me up--to see me his wife...."

"I'll never see that. You can throw me over, but you'll never marry him."

"You're big--you're big enough to see this as I see it, and big enough to let me do it.... You will be when--the surprise and the first hurt of it have gone. It's asking just one more thing of you--when you've willingly given so much.... But it's I who do the harder giving. In a few months, in a year, you will have forgotten me.... I can never forget you. Every day and every hour I'll be reminded of you. I'll be thinking of you.... When I greet HIM it will be YOU I'm greeting....

When I am pretending to--to care for him, it will be YOU I am loving.

The thought of that, and the knowledge of what I am doing for those poor men--will be all the happiness I shall have... will give me courage to live on and to GO on.... You believe me, don't you, dear?

You must, you must believe me!"

He approached her again. "Look at me!... Look at me," he demanded, and she gave her eyes to his. They were pure eyes, the eyes of an enthusiast, the eyes of a martyr. He could not misread them, even in his pa.s.sion he could not doubt them.... The elevation of her soul shone through them. Constancy, steadfastness, courage, determination, sureness, and loftiness of purpose were written there.... He turned away, his head sinking upon his breast, and when he spoke the pa.s.sion, the rancor, the bitterness, were gone from his voice. It was lower, quivering, almost gentle.

"You sha'n't.... It isn't necessary. It isn't required of you."

"If it is possible, then it is required of me," she said.

"No.... No...." He sank into a chair and covered his face, and she could hear the hissing of his breath as he fought for self-control.

"If it were you," she said. "If you could bring about the things I can--the good for so many--would you hesitate? Is there anything you wouldn't do to give THEM what I can give?... You know there's not. You know you could withhold no sacrifice.... Then don't make this one harder for me. Don't stand in my way."

"I HATE him," Dulac said, in a tense whisper. "If you--married him and I should meet him--I couldn't keep my hands off him.... The thought of YOU--of HIM--I'd KILL him...."

"You wouldn't," she said. "You'd think of ME--and you'd remember that I love you--and that I have given you up--and all the rest, so I could be his wife--and rule him.... And you wouldn't make it all futile by killing him.... Then I'd be helpless. I've got to have him to--to do the rest."

She went to him, and stroked his black, waving hair--so gently.

"Go now, my dear," she said. "You've got to rise to this with me.

You've got to sustain me.... Go now.... My mind is made up. I see my way...." Her voice trembled pitifully. "Oh, I see my way--and it is hard, HARD...."

"No," he cried, struggling to his feet.

"Yes," she said, softly. "Good-by.... This is our good-by. I--oh, my dear, don't forget--never forget--Oh, go, GO!"

In that moment it seemed to her that her heart was bursting for him, that she loved him to the very roots of her soul. She was sure at last, very sure. She was certain she was not blinded by glamour, not fascinated by the man and his part in the world.... If there had been, in a secret recess of her heart, a shadow of uncertainty, it was gone in this moment.

"Good-by," she said.

He arose and walked toward the door. He did not look at her. His hand was on the k.n.o.b, and the door was opening, yet he did not turn or look.... "Good-by.... Good-by," she sobbed--and he was GONE...

She was alone, and through all the rest of her years she must be alone.

She had mounted the altar, a sacrifice, a willing sacrifice, but never till this minute had she experienced the full horror and bitterness and woe that were required of her.... She was ALONE.

The world has seen many minor pa.s.sions in the Garden. It sees and pa.s.ses on, embodying none of them in deathless epic as His pa.s.sion was embodied.... Men and women have cried out to listening Heaven that the cup might pa.s.s from their lips, and it has not been permitted to pa.s.s, as His was not permitted to pa.s.s. In the souls of men and of women is something of the divine, something high and marvelous--a gift from Heaven to hold the human race above the mire which threatens to engulf it.... Every day it a.s.serts itself somewhere; in sacrifice, in devotion, in simple courage, in lofty renunciation. It is common; wonderfully, beautifully common... yet there are men who do not see it, or, seeing, do not comprehend, and so despair of humanity.... Ruth, crouching on the floor of her little parlor, might have numbered countless brothers and sisters, had she known.... She was uplifting man, not because of the thing she might accomplish, but because she was willing to seek its accomplishment....

Her eyes were dry. She could not weep. She could only crouch there and peer into the blackness of the gulf that lay at her feet.... Then the doorbell rang, and she started. Eyes wide with tragedy, she looked toward the door, for she knew that there stood Bonbright Foote, come for his answer....

CHAPTER XVI

Bonbright had disobeyed the physician's orders to stay in bed all day, but when he arose he discovered that there are times when even a restless and impatient young man is more comfortable with his head on a pillow. So until evening he occupied a lounge with what patience he could muster. So it was that Rangar had no news of him during the day and was unable to relieve his father's increasing anxiety. Mr. Foote was not anxious now, but frightened; frightened as any potentate might be who perceived that the succession was threatened, that extinction impended over his line.

Bonbright scarcely tasted the food that was brought him on a tray at six o'clock. He was afire with eagerness, for the hour was almost there when he could go to Ruth for her answer. He arose, somewhat dizzily, and demanded his hat, which was given him with protests. It was still too early to make his call, but he could not stay away from the neighborhood, so he took a taxicab to Ruth's corner, and there alighted. For half an hour he paced slowly up and down, eying the house, picturing in his mind Ruth in the act of accepting him or Ruth in the act of refusing him. One moment hope flashed high; the next it was quenched by doubt.... He saw Dulac leave the house; waited another half hour, and then rang the doorbell.

Mrs. Frazer opened the door.

"Evening, Mr. Foote," she said, without enthusiasm, for she had not approved of this young man's calls upon her daughter.

"Miss Frazer is expecting me," he said, diffidently, for he was sensitive to her antagonism.

"In the parlor," said she, "and no help with the dishes, which is to be expected at her age, with first one young man and then another, which, if she gets any pleasure out of it, I'm not one to deny her, though not consulted. If I was starting over again I'd wish it was a son to be traipsing after some other woman's daughter and not a daughter to have other women's sons traipsing after.... That door, Mr. Foote. Go right in."

Bonbright entered apprehensively, as one might enter a court room where a jury was about to rise and declare its verdict of guilty or not guilty. He closed the door after him mechanically.

"Ruth..." he said.

Her face, marked with tears, not untouched by suffering, startled him.

"Are you--ill?" he said.

"Just--just tired" she said.

"Shall I go?... Shall I come again to-morrow?"