Once she had started, hearing herself
laugh. She was seated at a table, and was talking. And then she had
passed back into forgetfulness. Now, from somewhere, she was gazing
downward. Roofs, domes and towers lay stretched before her, emerging
from a sea of shadows. She held out her arms towards them and the tears
came to her eyes. The poor tired people were calling to her to join with
him to help them. Should she fail them--turn deaf ears to the myriad
because of pity for one useless, feeble life?
She had been fashioned to be his helpmate, as surely as if she had been
made of the same bone. Nature was at one with God. Spirit and body both
yearned for him. It was not position--power for herself that she craved.
The marriage market--if that had been her desire: it had always been open
to her. She had the gold that buys these things. Wealth, ambition: they
had been offered to her--spread out temptingly before her eyes. They
were always within her means, if ever she chose to purchase them. It was
this man alone to whom she had ever felt drawn--this man of the people,
with that suggestion about him of something primitive, untamed, causing
her always in his presence that faint, compelling thrill of fear, who
stirred her blood as none of the polished men of her own class had ever
done.
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