Lassie's brows drew together; the revelation did not appeal to her personal reason as reasonable.
"We talked for quite a while—not about ourselves—we understood each other too well to need do that. It seems to me now that we were almost one then, but I didn't know it. All I knew was that I could measure a little of what he was, and that there was a bond between us of absolute content in working out God's will rather than our own. I believe now that that is really the only true love or the only true basis for any marriage, and that when that mutual bond is once accepted, nothing can alter, not even an ocean rolling between—not even ten oceans. He spoke of the Falls, and he spoke of his own work. I listened and thanked God that I knew what he meant, and comprehended what it meant to me. At the end of the hour we parted, and I came back to the hotel and started for home the morning after.... He went away, too, and it was later—when we began to write letters—that our life together, our beautiful ideal life together, began. You can't realize its happiness any more than you can measure all that my words really mean. I can't explain myself any better, either. After a while it will all come to you, I hope. I went on with the work at home, and he continued his labors which allowed him neither home nor family. Nobody knew and nobody would have known, even if he or she thought that they knew. The very best and loveliest things lie all around the most of us, and the best and loveliest of all treasures are within our own hearts—and yet very few of us know anything about them. Perhaps better that the world in general shouldn't understand the joy of my kind of love, anyhow; it isn't time for that yet."
"How, Alva?"
She smiled almost whimsically, "Dearest, as soon as the whole world understands that sort of life, its own mission will be fulfilled, and then there will be no more of this particular world. You see!"
"Oh!"
"So then, dear, time went on and on, and I was happy, very happy. And he was very happy, also. There was something truly childlike in his happiness; he had never expected love in his life, because he had never thought of meeting any one who would be able to adapt herself to his circumstances. We never met, because it didn't seem best or wise. We just loved, and I don't believe that any two people have ever been happier together than we were, apart, for these five years—these happy, happy five years."
Lassie felt a deepening misery; the last horrible part must be going to come now.
Alva passed her hand over her eyes and drew a long breath.
"It's so difficult to be different from other people, and then to bear their way of looking at things. It's so hopeless to try to translate one's feeling into their language all the time. How can I go on, when I know just how it all looks to you. It's fearfully hard for me."
"I won't say a word,"—the girl's cry was pitiful.