Max settled himself comfortably in the grateful warmth and glow.
"One could well face a fiercer storm for a moment of lesser bliss," he said.
The firelight fell on his swarthy face and magnificent proportions. How like a veritable knight stepped out of the book of brave deeds he appeared!
The library door stood open, and Dr. Eldrige Jr., who had been called to see one of the Mayhew children slightly ailing, passed this door on his way to the nursery and saw the man and woman sitting in the firelight. His face grew hard, and involuntarily his fingernails cut into the flesh of his palms.
"There was a time," he thought, "a time centuries ago, when true men were knights and challenged to deadly conflict villains who dared to approach women of honor. There would be satisfaction in grappling with a man of Morrison's stamp; grappling until his cursed blood flows red--or give my life in the effort. But in these days, these better, Christian days, we have done away, if not with honor, with all aggressive vindication of it; we no longer call our enemy to halt and demand of him his aims and intentions; we get out of his way and give him full swing." The doctor came to a sudden halt; a new train of thought had flashed into his mind. "My God! I cannot tell what this man's intentions may be. He may intend to marry Geraldine!"
It was the first time this aspect of the affair had presented itself to him, and while it seemed a thing too hideous to contemplate, he felt sure that it was true. But although his indignation and despair broiled and seethed in his heart, he ministered to the child with a touch skilled and tender as a woman's; then he gave the nurse exact directions for the night and took his departure.
When he again passed the library the door had swung to and no sound came to him from behind the closed portal. He passed quickly, quietly out of the house and into the street, out into the dark, moaning night. Rain and sleet were falling; the wind buffeted him and strange sounds from the shivering trees and their bare, wailing branches came to him. All the black face of the night seemed possessed of a wild and witch-like fierceness. Voices shrieked and hissed at him. The woman--the one woman in the world--the woman that he loved--what was life to him now and all that it contained? Was the future that stretched before him less black than this tempestuous night? Alone in the storm and the darkness he felt himself a part of the tumultuous elements about him.
In the library the firelight lay warm and red over the furnishings, and fantastic shadows lurked here and there about the room. The wind when it arose in its fury could be heard like the sobbing of some unhappy spirit.
Max stood before Geraldine, his soul in his eyes and a great tenderness in his musical, well-modulated voice.
"You must have known that I love you, Geraldine," he said; "love and adore you." He extended his hands to her, pleading, passionate. "Geraldine!"