That was all that was written. Dan read every word of the manuscript aloud, but was compelled by emotion to pause many times. During the silence that followed, one thought rose uppermost in their minds. Ellen thought, "How will Dan bear this?" And Dan had the same thought with respect to Ellen. Is such noble unselfishness rare? Let us hope not. For the first and only time in the course of this narrative, the writer pauses to speak of a personal experience of devotion and unselfishness. It was before him during his boyhood in the person of his mother; and it is to her, and to the patient, unmurmuring gentleness with which she bore the trials of her life, that her children owe whatever little of good there may be in their nature. It is from his experience of his mother's life of goodness and self-sacrifice that he knows that the noble unselfishness of Dan and Ellen is not, thank God, a creation of his fancy. And as he writes these words in the midst of a great city, with all the whirl of its busy life around him, he is glad to think that in it--in great mansions and mean houses, in sight of gardens where Nature makes holiday, and of dirty streets and courts where bright leaf never grows--flowers of human life which the world shall never see are blossoming tenderly and holily, and living gentle lives for others' good.
For a long time no word was spoken by Ellen and Dan. Then Dan turned and looked in Ellen's face. She met his gaze pityingly, almost appealingly. He answered her with a sad smile, in which there was much sweetness.
"You were the first to guess my love for Minnie," he said; "and only to Jo did I ever confess it. But do not fret for me, my dear; she can never be to me what I was daring enough to hope she would be one day. My love for her is not less strong, but my hope is buried now."
She could say nothing but "Oh, my poor Dan! Oh, my poor Dan!"
"Nay, why?" he answered in his gentle voice; "what could I have offered her? What right had I, a cripple, to entertain the hope? I dared to hope that she, bright, strong, and full of healthful life, would tie herself to a weak, sickly thing like me. I dared to hope that she would love me. I fed my heart upon delusions; I can see it now, But I can love her still--can believe in her still--shall have faith in her purity as long as my heart shall beat, and after that--ay, who knows?" He paused for a little while before he resumed: "What you and I have in our thoughts, my dear, we must speak of; in that lies our only consolation. And we must not shrink from it; for our duty, no less than our love, demands it."
And yet she did shrink, fearing what was coming.
"What wonder that she should love Joshua?" continued Dan, unflinchingly determined to look the truth in the face, and not to spare himself; although as he spoke his quivering lips and tremulous voice betrayed his agitation. "We who know how good and brave he is are able to understand that she could not help loving him. But he--no, he played no false part by her." He placed his hand upon the Bible, and the action gave a deeper solemnity to the declaration. "Some suspicion he may have entertained that her feelings towards him were warmer than they ought to have been; and I well know the grief such suspicion brought to him. But he could not mention it--he dared not speak of it for Minnie's sake--for mine. I can trace a meaning now in the last words he said to me. 'You do not doubt me, Dan?' he asked. I answered, 'No, nor never could.' And then he said he should not have asked, but that certain things had distressed him lately. Poor Jo! Yes, he must have guessed Minnie's secret, and, knowing my love for her, trembled lest I should turn against him. Turn against him! my best, my dearest friend! When I do, it will be time for me to die. Believe that I never wavered in my love or my truth, and that to the last I held you in my heart as I hold you now, gentlest, dearest, best of friends!"
Unconsciously he had uttered the very words which Joshua addressed to him, and he spoke them as if Joshua were standing before him.
"As for what we have read to-night, we, and we alone, can rightly understand it. He who wrote it in his agony knows now that Joshua's heart is as pure as Minnie's honor."
"Those strange letters poor Minnie's father received," whispered Ellen; "who wrote them?"