The ruins of an old iron foundry stood on this river road. The roof had fallen in long ago. The walls and gables, built of rough stone alone remained. Creeping vines covered them. The sun dipping low upon the horizon shone through the open places where windows had been. But the shadows were already deepening in the great, open doorway beside the road. Helen was for turning back now. She was all brisked up with the desire to hurry home with this sweet burden of happiness.
“No, let’s go up there,” he said, making a gesture toward this door.
They climbed the slope from the road, hand in hand, and sat upon a long stone step, the fields before them changing already beneath the lavender mists of twilight, the river singing below, the bright squares of sunlight fading from the black smoked walls within, the shadows in there deepening to darkness behind them. But what soft effulgence in this girl’s face! Already the candles upon her altar burned. For so many years she kept that look of pale candle light in the dark.[74] Her features changed; the skin lost its rosy glow; her beauty passed away; but this serene brightness never faded. When I knew her long afterwards she was in the full bloom of her years, her eyes of that calmer blue women get when all the storms of love and loving have passed and left the heart motionless with the awful peace of victory over love. And she was still thinking of love, as one recalls an epitaph!
Besides the happiness of having her beside him, clasped like a banner to his side, George had something to say. He must make Helen understand one thing, and he thought he could do this now without risking his happiness. He did not anticipate that any emergency would ever arise between them that would force him to fall back on this conviction about love; but he had it; he had studied the science of social ethics in the university—an illuminating subject under a singularly broad-minded doctor of philosophy named Herron.
The ethics were binding, of course, but between the lines and the laws Herron interpolated his own views on love. He had more than once attacked what he called the barbarous “contract of marriage.” Divorce was one of the articles of his creed. When Nature called for a separation[75] of the contracting parties, it was abominable not to yield to this natural law, otherwise you profaned that most sacred of all things—love, and so on and so forth.
George entertained a profound respect for Herron. Most of the young men in his classes did. Still, they referred to him as “that fellow Herron,” and discussed his views more than they did those of any other member of the faculty. In this way George had obtained one of his strongest convictions, a sort of pet moral; and as he had already taken occasion to inform Helen, “no man on God’s green earth was more faithful to his convictions.”
“You know what I believe about love,” he began, drawing her closer to him according to this faith, it appeared.
“Me!” she answered with charming confidence.
“Oh, yes,” kissing her; “you are love, and my life.”
She sighed.
“That is why I believe in the freedom of love,” he began again. “There can be no bondage—ever—in love.”
“Only the vows we take,” she whispered.
“Yes, of course, marriage,” he admitted.
“It is like being confirmed—in love—isn’t it?”
[76]“Why, yes, for those who love.”
“And we do,” she said.
“Yes, indeed,” he returned heartily—and hurriedly, if she had noticed; for she was getting off on the wrong tack, and he wanted to say what he had to say before this wind filled her sails. “But it is by love, not law, that you chose me; isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, my love,” she answered softly.
“Otherwise you would not take me,” he went on.
“But I do love you.”
“But if the time ever came when—when you ceased to care for me—” he stammered and did not finish, feeling her stiffen as if by a resolve in his arms.
“It could not come, such a time,” she interrupted, “because I could never cease to love you.”
“I know it, my sweetheart,” speaking with tender gratitude, “but I am only supposing the case, that if either of us ceased to care—”
She tore herself from him. She covered him with her wide, blue gaze. “Could you—cease to care?” she demanded.
“Absolutely no! You are my very life. I think, live and hope everything in terms of you,” he assured her.
But she was not assured. She remained apart,[77] no longer yielding to his arms about her. “Well, why think about what will not happen?” she asked.
“I told you we were only supposing—”
“Not I?”
“—that if you or I,” he went on determined to make his point, “ceased to love, it would be profanation to—pretend—to live as if we did, wouldn’t it?”
“But, George,” with a note of pain, with the brightening of tears in her eyes, “we shall be one. It says so everywhere, in the Bible, in the vows we take, that we are one flesh. Then how can either of us cease to love?”
“We won’t; we never shall,” he cried eloquently, and drawing her fearful, only half-willing in a close embrace. “But I must be honest with you. This is my conviction, the sanctity and freedom of love.”
“It sounds well, but it feels dangerous,” she whispered.
“Don’t you believe in me, Helen?” in an offended tone.
“I do, oh, I do; but not in your conviction,” she moaned.
“What difference does it make, my heart? We love. We have chosen each other,” he laughed.
[78]“Forever?” she wanted to know.
“Forever!” he repeated with emphasis.
She leaned close to his side, her head upon his breast, her eyes closed, lips parted, white teeth gleaming. He knew for certain that nothing could separate him from this goodness, this sweetness, this loveliness. He merely wished to be on the level, to conceal nothing from her that concerned them so nearly. He kissed her rapturously.
She opened her eyes, human violets, blue like these flowers, innocent like a maid, but troubled as if far away cold winds were sweeping down. “Do you feel the wind?” she said.
“There is no wind.”
“Yes; and cold; I feel the chill.”
“The air from the river,” he said, releasing her.
“And the sun is down. It is late. We must go,” she said.
They went back down the slope to the road, hand in hand as they had come up, but not the same. The pain which accompanies love had entered her heart.
She was never to be perfectly easy again. No woman ever is who loves. Some months, some days, at last a few hours and a few moments of happiness she was to have with which to balance[79] the years of life with love and this pain. But ask her! She will tell you that they were worth more than the years. So many more women than we know are like that.
Once when they were near the town, he looked at her happily and said: “I have not told you the news. It concerns you, too, now. I got a raise in salary yesterday.”
“I am so glad,” she answered smiling.
“Oh, I deserved it. I am making good. Father knows it,” he put in.
“You do work hard,” she agreed.
“But not near as hard as I mean to work now—for you,” he assured her.
She tightened her fingers upon his in reply.
“I mean to be a successful man, Helen, for you. You shall have everything.”
“I need only you,” she answered.
“The world is a wolf, did you know that?”
She did not, she said.
“Yes, it is; and the man that makes good in it has got to be a wolf too.”
The lamb looked up at the wolf and smiled. She was merely noticing for the hundredth time how handsome he was, and wishing he had compared himself to a lion. She preferred to think of him as a lion.