|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 60
She saw him complete his task and wipe his brown moist face and stride
toward her, coming nearer, tall and erect with something added to his
soldierly bearing, with a light in his eyes she could no longer bear.
The moment for which she had waited more than two months had come at last.
"Glenn--when will you go back East?" she asked, tensely and low.
The instant the words were spent upon her lips she realized that he had
always been waiting and prepared for this question that had been so
terrible for her to ask.
"Carley," he replied gently, though his voice rang, "I am never going back
East."
An inward quivering hindered her articulation.
"Never?" she whispered.
"Never to live, or stay any while," he went on. "I might go some time for a
little visit. . . . But never to live."
"Oh--Glenn!" she gasped, and her hands fluttered out to him. The shock was
driving home. No amaze, no incredulity succeeded her reception of the fact.
It was a slow stab. Carley felt the cold blanch of her skin. "Then--this is
it--the something I felt strange between us?"
"Yes, I knew--and you never asked me," he replied.
"That was it? All the time you knew," she whispered, huskily. "You knew.
. . . I'd never--marry you--never live out here?"
"Yes, Carley, I knew you'd never be woman enough--American enough--to help
me reconstruct my broken life out here in the West," he replied, with a sad
and bitter smile.
That flayed her. An insupportable shame and wounded vanity and clamoring
love contended for dominance of her emotions. Love beat down all else.
"Dearest--I beg of you--don't break my heart," she implored.
"I love you, Carley," he answered, steadily, with piercing eyes on hers.
"Then come back--home--home with me."
"No. If you love me you will be my wife."
"Love you! Glenn, I worship you," she broke out, passionately. "But I could
not live here--I could not."
"Carley, did you ever read of the woman who said, 'Whither thou goest,
there will I go' . . ."
"Oh, don't be ruthless! Don't judge me. . . . I never dreamed of this. I
came West to take you back."
"My dear, it was a mistake," he said, gently, softening to her distress.
"I'm sorry I did not write you more plainly. But, Carley, I could not ask
you to share this--this wilderness home with me. I don't ask it now. I
always knew you couldn't do it. Yet you've changed so--that I hoped against
hope. Love makes us blind even to what we see."
"Don't try to spare me. I'm slight and miserable. I stand abased in my own
eyes. I thought I loved you. But I must love best the crowd--people
--luxury--fashion--the damned round of things I was born to."
"Carley, you will realize their insufficiency too late," he replied,
earnestly. "The things you were born to are love, work, children,
happiness."
"Don't! don't! . . . they are hollow mockery for me," she cried,
passionately. "Glenn, it is the end. It must come--quickly. . . . You are
free."
"I do not ask to be free. Wait. Go home and look at it again with different
eyes. Think things over. Remember what came to me out of the West. I will
always love you--and I will be here--hoping--"
"I--I cannot listen," she returned, brokenly, and she clenched her hands
tightly to keep from wringing them. "I--I cannot face you. . . . Here
is--your ring. . . . You--are--free. . . . Don't stop me--don't come. . . .
Oh, Glenn, good-by!"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|