“it was because you were out of sorts with the world, smarting with the wrongs you saw on every side, struggling[277] after something better and higher, and siding and sympathizing with the poor and weak, that i loved you. we should never have been here, dear, if you had been a young gentleman satisfied with himself and the world, and likely to get on well in society.”

“ah, mary, it’s all very well for a man. it’s a man’s business. but why is a woman’s life to be made wretched? why should you be dragged into all my perplexities, and doubts, and dreams, and struggles?”

“and why should i not?”

“life should be all bright and beautiful to a woman. it is every man’s duty to shield her from all that can vex, or pain, or soil.”

“but have women different souls from men?”

“god forbid!”

“then are we not fit to share your highest hopes?”

“to share our highest hopes! yes, when we have any. but the mire and clay where one sticks fast over and over again, with no high hopes or high anything else in sight—a man must be a selfish brute to bring one he pretends to love into all that.”

“now, tom,” she said almost solemnly, “you are not true to yourself. would you, part with your own deepest convictions? would you if you could, go back to the time when you cared for and thought about none of these things?”

“he thought a minute, and then, pressing her hand, said:[278]

“no, dearest, i would not. the consciousness of the darkness in one and around one brings the longing for light. and then the light dawns; through mist and fog, perhaps, but enough to pick one’s way by.” he stopped a moment, and then added, “and shines ever brighter unto the-perfect day. yes, i begin to know it.”

“then, why not put me on your own level? why not let me pick my way by your side? cannot a woman feel the wrongs that are going on in the world? cannot she long to see them set right, and pray that they may be set right? we are not meant to sit in fine silks, and look pretty, and spend money, any more than you are meant to make it, and cry peace where there is no peace. if a woman cannot do much herself, she can honor and love a man who can.”

he turned to her, and bent over her, and kissed her forehead, and kissed her lips. she looked up with sparkling eyes and said:

“am i not right, dear?”

“yes, you are right, and i have been false to my creed. you have taken a load off my heart, dearest. henceforth there shall be but one mind and one soul between us. you have made me feel what it is that a man wants, what is the help that is meet for him.”

he looked into her eyes, and kissed her again; and then rose up, for there was something within him like a moving of new life, which lifted him, and set him on[279] his feet. and he stood with kindling brow, gazing into the autumn air, as his heart went sorrowing, but hopefully “sorrowing, back through all the faultful past.” and she sat on at first, and watched his face; and neither spoke nor moved for some minutes. then she rose too, and stood by his side:

and on her lover’s arm she leant,

and round her waist she felt it fold;

and so across the hills they went,

in that new world which is the old.