“If some one could only give you a fortune now!”
“I do not believe in fortunes. A man's best wealth consists of his personal labors, personal life. 'Silver and gold have I none'—but wherever I am, I can give myself, my labors, and my life.”
I said something about that being a great gift—many men would call it a great sacrifice.
“Less to me than to most men—since, as you know, I have no relatives; nor is it likely I shall ever marry.”
I believed so. Not constantly; but at intervals. Something in his manner and mode of thought fixed the conviction in my mind, from our earliest acquaintance.
Of course, I merely made some silent assent to this confidence. What was there to say? Perhaps he expected something—for as we turned to walk home, the sun having set, he remained a long time silent. But I could not speak. In truth, nothing came into my head to say.
At last I lifted my eyes from the ground, and saw the mist beginning to rise over my moorland—my grey, soft, dreamy moorland. Ay, dreamy, it was, and belonging only to dreams. But the world beyond—the struggling suffering, sinning world of which he had told me—that was a reality.
I said to my friend who walked beside me, feeling keenly that he was my friend, and that I had a right to look up into his good noble face, wherein all his life was written as clearly as on a book—thinking too what a comfort and privilege it was to have more than any one else had the reading of that book—I said to Doctor Urquhart—my old hesitation having somehow altogether vanished—that I wished to know all he could possibly tell me of his plans and projects: that I liked to listen to them, and would fain do more than listen—help.
He thanked me. “Listening is helping. I hope you will not refuse sometimes to help me in that way—it is a great comfort to me. But the labor I hope for is exclusively a man's—if any woman could give aid you could, for you are the bravest woman I ever knew.”
“And do you think I never can help you?”