The Glory of the Conquered: The Story of a Great Love

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, Charles Franks, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
1909
To DR. A. L. HAGEBOECK,
Who Made This Book Possible
I. ERNESTINE II. THE LETTER III. KARL IV. JACK AND HIGHER TRUTH V. THE HOME-COMING VI. GLORIA VICTIS VII. ERNESTINE IN HER STUDIO VIII. SCIENCE, ART AND LOVE IX. As THE SURGEON SAW IT X. KARL IN HIS LABORATORY XI. PICTURES IN THE EMBERS XII. A WARNING AND A PREMONITION XIII. AN UNCROSSED BRIDGE XIV. TO THE GREAT UNWHIMPERING! XV. THE VERDICT XVI. GOOD LUCK, BEASON! XVII. DISTANT STRAINS OF TRIUMPH XVIII. TELLING ERNESTINE XIX. INTO THE DARK
She had promised to marry a scientist! It was too overwhelming a thought to entertain standing there by the window. She sought the room's most comfortable chair and braced herself to the situation.
If, one month before, a gossiping daughter of Fate had come to her with— Shall I tell you something?— You are going to marry a man of science! —she would have smiled serenely at Fate's amusing mistake and responded— My good friend, it is quite true that great uncertainty attends this subject. So much to be expected is the unexpected, that I am quite willing to admit I may marry the hurdy-gurdy man who plays beneath my window. I know life well enough to appreciate that I may marry a pawnbroker or the Sultan of Turkey. I assert but one thing. I shall not marry a 'man of science.'
And now, not only had she promised to marry a man of science, but she had quite overlooked the fact of his being one! And the thing which stripped her of the last shred of consistency was that she was to marry, not the every-day, average man of science, but one of the foremost scientists of all the world! The powers in charge of things matrimonial must be smiling a quiet little smile to-night.
But ah—here was the vindication! He had not asked her to marry him. He had simply come and told her she was to marry him. And he was a great, strong man—far more powerful than she. She had had positively nothing to do with it! Was it her fault that he chanced to be engaged in scientific pursuits? And when he took her face so tenderly in his two hands—looked so far down into her eyes—and told her in a voice she would follow to the ends of the earth that he loved her—was there any time then to think of paltry non-essentials like art and science?