All the arguments against it I've
rehearsed a thousand times. The world is at your feet. You could
never love a man like me. To your friends I'm a bad lot. They
never would consider me a moment."
Gently she interrupted. "Is it my friends you want to marry?"
The surprise of it took him by the throat. His astonished eyes
questioned for a denial. In that moment a wonderful secret was
born into the world. She held out both hands with a divine
frankness, a sweetness of surrender beyond words.
"But your father--your people!"
"'Where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my
people."' She murmured it with a broken little laugh that was a
sob.
Even then he did not take her in his arms. The habit of reverence
for her was of many years' growth and not to be broken in an
instant.
"You are sure, dear--quite sure?"
"I've been sure ever since the day of our first talk on the
_Bellingham._"
Still he fought the joy that flooded him. "I must tell you the
truth so that you won't idealize me . . . and the situation. I am
enlisted in this fight for life. Where it will lead me I don't
know. But I must follow the road I see. You will lose your
friends.
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