And because it was genuine, it carried her
forward on the wave of powerful feeling toward his will.
"I do care for you," she said, with a strong effort to appear calm.
"As a friend you are very dear to me, and you are no doubt right to
class friendship so highly. But I can not pretend that I love you. I
do not love you. And a woman should love the man she marries."
He let her hands fall.
"And so you are going to let your life remain empty, little woman?"
"Empty?" she echoed.
"Yes, empty. Will it prove the strength of my love for you if I tell
you that it has given me the power to look straight into your heart?
How many times have I read there the thought: 'Of what use is it all?
My life has no object, no end or aim. No one needs me now.' Lois, one
man needs you--needs you perhaps as much as he loves you. That man is
myself. If you say you have done nothing in the world, look into the
soul that I open out to you and to you alone. There is not a generous,
honest deed or thought which has not its origin in you. For your sake
I have beaten down the devil under my feet--I have tried to live as I
meant to live before the time when I, too, found that there was no
object in it all, that no one cared whether I was good or bad. This
much have you changed in me--it has been your unconscious work. Are
you going to leave the task which surely God has left for you to
accomplish?"
He had touched the chord in her which could only give one response,
and he knew it.
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