You give me back my strength. The plans and
hopes and dreams that were slipping from me come crowding round me,
laughing and holding out their hands. They are like the children. They
need two to care for them. I want to talk about them to someone who
understands them and loves them, as I do. I want to feel they are dear
to someone else, as well as to myself: that I must work for them for her
sake, as well as for my own. I want someone to help me to bring them
up."
There were tears in his eyes. He brushed them angrily away. "Oh, I know
I ought to be ashamed of myself," he said. "It wasn't her fault. She
wasn't to know that a hot-blooded young chap of twenty hasn't all his
wits about him, any more than I was. If I had never met you, it wouldn't
have mattered. I'd have done my bit of good, and have stopped there,
content. With you beside me"--he looked away from her to where the
silent city peeped through its veil of night--"I might have left the
world better than I found it."
The blood had mounted to her face. She drew back into the shadow, beyond
the tiny sphere of light made by the little lamp.
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