"May I see it, sir?" I asked, profoundly touched by the loving accents of his voice.
"Surely," he replied, and he passed over to me a lock of golden hair, which I pressed to my lips. "The little head was once covered with these golden curls, and to us, her parents, they were as holy as they would have been on the head of an angel. She was all that to us, Gabriel. It is within the scope of human love to lift one's thoughts to heaven and God; it is within its scope to make one truly fit for the life to come. All things are not of the world worldly; it is a grievous error to think so, and only sceptics can so believe. In the kiss of baby lips, in the touch of little hands, in the myriad sweet ways of childhood, lie the breath of a pure religion which God receives because of its power to sanctify the lowest as well as the highest of human lives. It is good to think of that, and to feel that, in the holiest forms of humanity, the poor stand as high as the rich." He paused a while before he continued. "Gabriel, it is an idle phrase for a father holding the position towards you which I do at the present moment, to say he has no fears for the happiness of his only child."
"If you have any, sir," I said, "question me, and let me endeavour to set your mind at ease. In one respect I can do so with solemn earnestness. If it be my happy lot to win your daughter, her welfare, her honour, her peace of mind, shall be the care of my life. These assured, happiness should follow. I love Lauretta with a pure heart; no other woman has ever possessed my love; to no other woman have I been drawn; nor is it possible that I could be. She is to me part of my spiritual life. I am not as other men, in the ordinary acceptation. In my childhood's life there was but little joy, and the common pleasures of childhood were not mine. From almost my earliest remembrances there was but little light in my parents' house, and in looking back upon it I can scarcely call it a home. The fault was not mine, as you will admit. May I claim some small merit--not of my own purposed earning, but because it was in me, for which I may have reason to be grateful--from the fact that the circumstances of my early life did not corrupt me, did not drive me to a searching for low pleasures, and did not debase me? It seemed to me, sir, that I was ever seeking for something in the heights and not in the depths. Books and study were my comforters, and I derived real pleasures from them. They served to satisfy a want, and, although I contracted a melancholy mood, I was not unhappy. I know that this mood is in me, but when I think of Lauretta it is dispelled. I seem to hear the singing of birds, to see flowers around me, to bathe in sunshine. Perhaps it springs from the fervour of my love for her; but a kind of belief is mine that I have been drawn hither to her, that my way of life was measured to her heart. What more can I say, sir?"
"You have said much," said Doctor Louis, "to comfort and assure me, and have, without being asked, answered questions which were in my mind. Do you remember a conversation you had with my wife in the first days of your convalescence, commenced I think by you in saying that the happiest dream of your life was drawing to a close?"
"I was thinking of Lauretta. Even in those early days I felt that I loved her."
"I understand that now," said Doctor Louis. "My wife replied that life must not be dreamt away, that it has duties."
"I remember the conversation well, sir."
"My wife said that one's ease and pleasures are rewards, only enjoyable when they have been worthily earned; and when you asked, 'Earned in what way?' she answered, 'In accomplishing one's work in the world.'"
"Yes, sir, her words come back to me."
"There is something more," said Doctor Louis, with sad sweetness, "which I should not recall did I not hold duty before me as my chief beacon. Inclination and selfish desire must often be sacrificed for it. You will understand how sadly significant this is to me when I recall what followed. Though, to be sure," he added, in a slightly gayer tone, "we could visit you and our daughter, wherever your abode happened to be. Continuing your conversation with my wife, you said, 'How to discover what one's work really is, and where it should be properly performed?' My wife answered, 'In one's native land.'"