“Mother says you’ll wear out yourself, and everybody else,” Faith said, with a touch of petulance,—“going on so.”
David was silent for a moment. It was often the case that in the first sweetness of being with her he lost sight of the purpose which had gradually been strengthening in his mind, but such words as these brought it back with a sudden shock. And he knew that to-night he must speak plainly, whatever it cost him.
“Your mother is right, dear Faith,” he said gently. His speech was often abrupt, and rather fiery than persuasive, but he had a full and mellow voice, and it was at this moment modulated into the tenderest tones. “I’ve thought it over on my knees, and I know I’ve been over-hasty in asking you to be my wife. I didn’t ought to have done it, and I can never blame myself enough. For you couldn’t bear it, any more than I could bear to see it.”
His voice failed him in these last words, and he held his breath tightly, waiting with an eager faint hope for Faith to make some answer which would show that she would work by his side. She understood what he meant, knowing it was the self-imposed hardships of his life to which he was alluding, and she took the most effectual method of replying by putting up her apron, and beginning to cry piteously.
Stephens made one step towards her, but then he suddenly checked himself, though the dim light that came from the kitchen showed his strong features working with agitation.
“Why should you be different from other men?” said the girl, sobbing. “There’s Jane going to be married, and Mary Bates, and Elizabeth. What’s to prevent you and me from settling down quiet like them?”
Ah, what? Here was the thought with which he had just done battle presenting itself in a fairer, softer shape. Why should he be the one to leave the brightness and warm glow, and content himself with cold and hunger and weariness? Not of the body only,—that seemed to him as nothing, if Faith might be by his side,—but hunger of the heart. Then, as the longing within him was to him a divine longing, and all that opposed it took the form of the evil one, a sudden anger rushed into his heart against her who was tempting him.
“Hush, Faith!” he said in a stern, sorrowful voice, “you are setting yourself against God’s work. I have got my hand to the plough, and I cannot look back.”
“But, David,” said Faith, frightened at his tone, and forgetting all except the fear of losing him, “I wouldn’t keep you back, I wouldn’t, indeed. You might go to preach, you know, just the same, and when you came back I should have things comfortable for you.”
“Yes, my dear, you would,” he said, with the thrill again in his voice. And then he cried out passionately, so that Sarah in the kitchen wondered what was being said, “Don’t make it more hard, Faith, don’t! I’ve heard of tearing out one’s heart, but I never knew before what it meant. Think what my life is. There are so many sick and suffering that I must help somehow, or their eyes would follow me to the very judgment-seat,—I must do it,—I am constrained. I have had no food to-day but a crust of bread and a glass of water. Up in my lodgings I’ve got that poor nigh-lost Nat Wills. I walked twenty mile yesterday to get hold of him, and there he is. By and by I’m going to his employer to see what is to be done. It’s the same always. But if I had a wife I don’t know that she would think it right to her that I should do it, and yet I could never dare leave it undone. I couldn’t, Faith.”