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. They will think me a crank, an enemy to society; and they
will think you demented. But even for you I can't turn back."

A tender glow was in her deep eyes. "If I did not know that do you
think I would marry you?"

"But you've always had the best things. You've never known what it
is to be poor."

"No, I've never had the best things, never till I knew you, dear.
I've starved for them and did not know how to escape the prison I
was in. Then you came . . . and you showed me. The world is at my
feet now. Not the world you meant, of idleness and luxury and
ennui . . . but that better one of the spirit where you and I
shall walk together as comrades of all who work and laugh and
weep."