Some old thought was stealing into his
brain, perhaps, fresh and warm, like a soft spring air,--some
hope of the future, in which this child-woman came close to him,
and near. It was an idle dream, only would taunt him when it was
over, but he opened his arms to it: it was an old friend; it had
made him once a purer and better man than he could ever be again.
A warm, happy dream, whatever it may have been: the rugged,
sinister face grew calm and sad, as the faces of the dead change
when loving tears fall on them.
He sighed wearily: the homely little hope was fanning into life
stagnant depths of desire and purpose, stirring his resolute
ambition. Too late? Was it too late? Living or dead she was
his, though he should never see her face, by some subtile power
that had made them one, he knew not when nor how. He did not
reason now,--abandoned himself, as morbid men only do, to this
delirious hope of a home, and cheerful warmth, and this woman's
love fresh and eternal: a pleasant dream at first, to be put away
at pleasure. But it grew bolder, touched under-deeps in his
nature of longing and intense passion; all that he knew or felt
of power or will, of craving effort, of success in the world,
drifted into this dream, and became one with it. He stood up,
his vigorous frame starting into a nobler manhood, with the
consciousness of right,--with a willed assurance, that, the first
victory gained, the others should follow.
It was late; he must go on; he had not meant to sit idling by the
road-side.
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