The Lash Part 24

For wistful thought of her he sought still to put her from him, weakly tried while every fibre of his being called for her who was always to rule his warm heart, whatever the vagaries of his foolish head.

"It's a long road--a road rainy with tears--you must travel with me."

"I love you."

There grew in her low tone an odd, wondering exaltation, as if through the domination of his vagabond personality, something heretofore sleeping in her soul woke and stretched its wings, longing for freedom, for the riot of mad winds and tumbling seas.

"There's not a soul near to you that won't grieve for you--with me. Not because I want it so, but because it was meant to be, it'll be gray skies, it'll be often an aching heart; it'll be from pillar to post, now here, now yonder; sometimes it will be--in h.e.l.l--with me."

"I love you."

Now her tone held in its full the divine finality of choice, for weal or woe. Gravely sweet, solemn with the sublimity of unselfish consecration, it told many things to the man who stood finally silenced and overwhelmed, clasping her in reverent arms close to his lonely heart. It told of gardens flowering in deserts, of splendid heights beyond that pierced the blue. It told him of the white grace of self sacrifice, of G.o.d-sent, sustaining hands. And finally it told of calm after storm, of the haven under the hill, of ultimate and abiding peace at the end of the long road, where dreams come true.