"Phineas—is that you? You have come out this bitter night—why did you?"
His tenderness over me, even then, made me break down. I forgot my manhood, or else it slipped from me unawares. In the old Bible language, "I fell on his neck and wept."
Afterwards I was not sorry for this, because I think my weakness gave him strength. I think, amidst the whirl of passion that racked him it was good for him to feel that the one crowning cup of life is not inevitably life's sole sustenance; that it was something to have a friend and brother who loved him with a love—like Jonathan's—"passing the love of women."
"I have been very wrong," he kept repeating, in a broken voice; "but I was not myself. I am better now. Come—let us go home."
He put his arm round me to keep me warm, and brought me safely into the house. He even sat down by the fire to talk with me. Whatever struggle there had been, I saw it was over, he looked his own self—only so very, very pale—and spoke in his natural voice; ay, even when mentioning HER, which he was the first to do.
"She goes to-morrow, you are sure, Phineas?"
"I believe so. Shall you see her again?"
"If she desires it."
"Shall you say anything to her?"
"Nothing. If for a little while—not knowing or not thinking of all the truth—I felt I had strength to remove all impediments, I now see that even to dream of such things makes me a fool, or possibly worse—a knave. I will be neither—I will be a man."