<h1>Chapter XXII.</h1>
<p>Joe was frightened; she stood and looked into Harrington’s
eyes, doubting what she should do, not understanding
what was occurring. He looked so pale and strange
as he sat there, that she was terrified. She came a
step nearer to him, and tried to speak.</p>
<p>“What is the matter, Mr. Harrington?”
she stammered. “Speak–you frighten me!”</p>
<p>Harrington looked at her for one moment more, and
then, without speaking, buried his face in his hands.
Joe clasped her hands to her side in a sudden pain;
her heart beat as though it would break, and the scene
swam round before her in the hot air. She tried to
move another step towards the bench, and her strength
almost failed her; she caught at the lattice of the
old summer-house, still pressing one hand to her breast.
The rotten slabs of the wood-work cracked under her
light weight. She breathed hard, and her face was
as pale as the shadows on driven snow; in another moment
she sank down upon the bench beside John, and sat there,
staring vacantly out at the sunlight. Harrington felt
her gentle presence close to him and at last looked
up; every feature of his strong face seemed changed
in the convulsive fight that rent his heart and soul
to their very depths; the enormous strength of his
cold and dominant nature rose with tremendous force
to meet and quell the tempest of his passion, and could
not; dark circles made heavy shadows under his deep-set
eyes, and his even lips, left colorless and white,
were strained upon his clenched teeth.</p>
<p>“God help me–I love you.”</p>
<p>That was all he said, but in his words the deep agony
of a mortal struggle rang strangely–the knell of
the old life and the birth-chime of the new. One by
one, the words he had never thought to speak fell from
his lips, distinctly; the oracle of the heart answered
the great question of fate in its own way.</p>
<p>Josephine Thorn sat by his side, her hands lying idly
in her lap, her thin white face pressing against the
old brown lattice, while a spray of the sweet honeysuckle
that climbed over the wood-work just touched her bright
brown hair. As John spoke she tried to lift her head
and struggled to put out her hand, but could not.</p>
<p>As the shadows steal at evening over the earth, softly
closing the flowers and touching them to sleep, silently
and lovingly, in the promise of a bright waking–so,
as she sat there, her eyelids drooped and the light
faded gently from her face, her lips parted a very
little, and with a soft-breathed sigh she sank into
unconsciousness.</p>
<p>John Harrington was in no state to be surprised or
startled by anything that happened. He saw, indeed,
that she had fainted, but with the unerring instinct
of a great love he understood. With the tenderness
of his strength he put one arm about her, and drew
her to him till her fair head rested upon his shoulder,
and he looked into her face.</p>
<p>In a few moments he had passed completely from the
old life to a life which he had never believed possible,
but which had nevertheless been long present with
him. He knew it and felt it, quickly realizing that
for the first time since he could remember he was
wholly and perfectly happy. He was a man who had dreamed
of all that is noble and great for man to do, who
had consecrated his every hour and minute to the attainment
of his end; and though his aim was in itself a good
one, the undivided concentration which the pursuit
of it required had driven him into a state outwardly
resembling extreme egotism. He had loved his own purposes
as he had loved nothing else, and as he had been persuaded
that he could love nothing else, in the whole world.
Now, suddenly, he knew his own heart.</p>
<p>There is something beyond mere greatness, beyond the
pursuit of even the highest worldly aims; there is
something which is not a means to the attainment of
happiness, which is happiness itself. It is an inner
sympathy of hearts and souls and minds, a perfect union
of all that is most worthy in the natures of man and
woman; it is a plant so sensitive that a breath of
unkindness will hurt it and blight its beauty, and
yet it is a tree so strong that neither time nor tempest
can overthrow it when it has taken root; and if you
would tear it out and destroy it, the place where
it grew is as deep and as wide as a grave. It is a
bond that is as soft as silk and as strong as death,
binding hearts, not hands; so long as it is not strained
a man will hardly know that he is bound, but if he
would break it he will spend his strength in vain and
suffer the pains of hell, for it is the very essence
and nature of a true love that it cannot be broken.</p>
<p>With such men as John Harrington love at first sight
is an utter impossibility. The strong dominant aspirations
that lead them are a light too brilliant to be outshone
by any sudden flash of hot passion. Love, when it
comes to them, is of slow growth, but enduring in the
same proportion as it is slow; identifying itself,
by degrees so small that a man himself is unconscious
of it, with the deepest feelings of the heart and
the highest workings of the intellect. It steals silently
into the soul in the guise of friendship, asking nothing
but loyal friendship in return; in the appearance
of kindness which asks but a little gratitude; in
the semblance of a calm and passionless trustfulness,
demanding only a like trust as its equivalent pledge,
a like faith as a gauge for its own, an equal measure
of charity for an equal; and so love builds himself
a temple of faith and charity, and trust and kindness,
and honest friendship, and rejoices exceedingly in
the whole goodness and strength and beauty of the
place where he will presently worship. When that day
comes he stands in the midst and kindles a strong clear
flame upon the altar, and the fire burns and leaps
and illuminates the whole temple of love, which is
indeed the holy of holies of the temple of life.</p>
<p>John Harrington, through five and thirty years of
his life, had believed that the patient labor of a
powerful intellect could suffice to a man, in its
results, for the attainment of all that humanity most
honors, even for the wise and unerring government
of humanity itself. To that end and in that belief
he had honestly given every energy he possessed, and
had sternly choked down every tendency he felt in
his inner nature toward a life less intellectual and
more full of sympathy for the affairs of individual
mankind. With him to be strong was to be cold–to be
warm was to be weak and subject to error; a supreme
devotion to his career and a supreme disdain of all
personal affections were the conditions of success
which he deemed foremostly necessary, and he had come
to an almost superstitious belief in the idea that
the love of woman is the destruction of the intellectual
man. Himself ready to sacrifice all he possessed, and
to spend his last strength in the struggle for an ideal,
he had nevertheless so identified his own person with
the object he strove to attain that he regarded all
the means he could possibly control with as much jealousy
as though he had been the most selfish of men. Friends
he looked upon as tools for his trade, and he valued
them not only in proportion to their honesty and loyalty
of heart, but also in the degree of their power and
intelligence. He sought no friendships which could
not help him, and relinquished none that could be
of service in the future.</p>
<p>But the world is not ruled by intellect, though it
is sometimes governed by brute force and yet more
brutal passions. The dominant power in the affairs
of men is the heart. Humanity is moved far more by
what it feels than by what it knows, and those who
would be rulers of men must before all things be men
themselves, and not merely highly finished intellectual
machines.</p>
<p>The guests were gone, no one had missed Harrington
and Joe, and Ronald and Sybil had gone into the house.
They sat side by side in the little bower at the end
of the long walk–Joe’s fair head resting in
her unconsciousness upon John’s shoulder. Presently
she stirred, and opening her eyes, looked up into
his face. She drew gently away from him, and a warm
blush spread quickly over her pale cheek; she glanced
down at her small white hands and they clasped each
other convulsively.</p>
<p>John looked at her; suddenly his gray eyes grew dark
and deep, and the mighty passion took all his strength
into its own, so that he trembled and turned pale
again. But the words failed him no longer now. He knew
in a moment all that he had to say, and he said it.</p>
<p>“You must not be angry with me, Miss Thorn,”
he began, “you must not think I am losing my
head. Let me tell you now–perhaps you will listen
to me. God knows, I am not worthy to say such things
to you, but I will try to be. It is soon said. I love
you; I can no more help loving you than I can help
breathing. You have utterly changed me, and saved me,
and made a life for me out of what was not life at
all. Do not think it is sudden–what is really to
last forever must take some time in growing. I never
knew till to-day-I honored you and would have done
everything in the world for you, and I was more grateful
to you than I ever was to any human being. But I thought
when we met we should be friends just as we always
were, and instead of that I know that this is the
great day of my life, and that my life with all that
it holds is yours now, for always, to do with as you
will. Pray hear me out, do not be afraid; no man ever
honored you as I honor you.”</p>
<p>Joe glanced quickly at him and then again looked down;
but the surging blood came and went in her face, coursing
madly in her pulses, every beat of her heart crying
gladness.</p>
<p>“It is little enough I have to offer you,”
said John, his voice growing unsteady in the great
effort to speak calmly. There was something almost
terrible in the strength of his rising passion. “It
is little enough–my poor life, with its wretched
struggles after what is perhaps far too great for
me. But such as it is I offer it to you. Take it if
you will. Be my wife, and give me the right to do
all I do for your sake, and for your sake only.”
He stretched out his hand and took hers, very gently,
but the strained sinews of his wrist trembled violently.
Josephine made no resistance, but she still looked
down and said nothing.</p>
<p>“Use me as you will,” he continued almost
in a whisper. “I will be all to you that man
ever was to a living woman. Do not say I have no right
to ask you for as much. I have this right, that I
love you beyond the love of other men, so truly and
wholly I love you; I will serve you so faithfully,
I will honor you so loyally that you will love me too.
Say the word, my beloved, say that it is not impossible!
I will wait–I will work–I will strive to be worthy
of you.” He pressed his white lips to her white
hand, and tried to look into her eyes, but she turned
away from him. “Will you not speak to me? Will
you not give to me some word–some hope? I can never
love you less, whatever you may answer me–yes or no–but
oh, if you knew the difference to me!”</p>
<p>Pale as death, John looked at Joe. She turned to him,
very white, and gazed into the dark gray depths of
his eyes, where the raging force of a transcendent
passion played so wildly; but she felt no fear, only
a mad longing to speak.</p>
<p>“Tell me–for God’s sake tell me,”
John said in low, trembling tones, “have I hurt
you? Is it too much that I ask?”</p>
<p>For one moment there was silence as they gazed at
each other. Then with a passionate impulse Josephine
buried her face in her hands upon John’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“No, it is not that!” she sobbed. “I
love you so much–I have loved you so long!”</p>
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