“Yes, forever. And I’ll not speak any ill of her memory.”
“Nor I of the memory of the man that’s dead,” said she slowly. “It’s life, I suppose.”
“Yes, that’s life! And I want it—all, every bit of it, all that any man ever coveted or had—all of a man’s dues in life. Yes, I want it—all!”
He spoke now with a sudden fierceness, his gray eyes aflame in a way she had not seen, that indomitableness of the inner man now showing through as never yet she had seen him, so that she felt a thrill, a shock, as of some vast, measureless dynamo of power suddenly awaking. “All life is the same thing. It’s all an education, all a growing—God! Give me my chance to grow! Let me get ready, so I can deserve. I’ve been hungry all my life—hungry for the world—hungry for my education—hungry for all a man’s life—love, happiness, content, power, usefulness. I’m hungry for this war, even, because I know it will teach me something or leave me at last at peace. I’ve not known peace. I’ve lived in torment—I’m in torment now. But I’ll come back bigger and better if I ever come back at all. Life—why, life——”
He halted, his drawn brows turned away.
“That little child that came up to me,” began Marcia Haddon hastily, as though irrelevantly—“if I could do something in the meantime—while you were out there—why, I’d be the happiest woman in all the world. Yes, I! And I’d said good-by to happiness, the same as you.” Her eyes were soft now.
“If I thought that could be,” he answered slowly, “I’d know the end even of this war—I’d know the end of my own fight—I’d know that justice and good do triumph over all and through all. Oh, what a dream! And for my people—the forgotten, the mocked, the helpless ones. If I—if you and I——”
“I’m going now,” he concluded, long later. “These are things in which I can’t give you counsel. You’re the one real woman I ever knew in all my narrow life—the one real woman. I reckon I’ve seen them all now. I wanted to tell you that, before I went away—I had to tell you! If only I had lived so that you wouldn’t think so ill of me. Oh, my God! Always I do the evil thing when I would do the right I’m so impatient. It’s so hard for me to be patient now.”