What do you see ahead of you?"
"Jim--only Jim--and God."
Her eyes were shining, her hands were clasped together at her side in the
tenseness of her feeling, her indomitable spirit spoke in her face.
Suddenly the old man brought his fist down on the table with a bang.
"It's a crime--oh, it's a crime, to risk your life so! You ought to have
been locked up. I'd have done it."
"Listen to me," she rejoined quietly. "I know the risk. But do you think
that I could have lived my life out, feeling that I might have saved Jim,
and didn't try? You talk of beauty and power and ruling--you say what
others have said to me. Which is the greater thing, to get what pleases
one, or to work for something which is more to one than all else in the
world? To save one life, one intellect, one great man--oh, he has the
making of a great man in him!--to save a soul, would not life be well
lost, would not love be well spent in doing it?"
"Love's labour lost," said the old man slowly, cynically, but not without
emotion.
"I have ambition," she continued. "No girl was ever more ambitious, but
my ambition is to make the most and best of myself. Place?--Jim and I
will hold it yet. Power?--it shall be as it must be; but Jim and I will
work for it to fulfil ourselves.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184