“But you’re going to stay here, aren’t you?”
“I’ve thought of that, too. I’ve thought of making another try at it in a professional way. But this is a big, empty country. Few people live in it and fewer die. I don’t know.” 94
“Well, you’re a doctor, not an undertaker, anyhow,” she reminded him.
“Yes; I missed my calling,” he laughed, with the bitterness of defeat.
“No,” she corrected; “I didn’t mean that. But perhaps at something else you might get on faster here–business of some kind, I mean.”
“If I had the chance!” he exclaimed wearily, flinging his hat to the ground as he sat beside her on a boulder at the river’s edge. “I’ve never had a square and open chance at anything yet.”
“I don’t know, of course,” said she. “But the trouble with most of us, it seems to me, is that we haven’t the quickness or the courage to take hold of the chance when it comes. All of us let so many good ones get away.”
Dusk had deepened. The star-glow was upon the river, placid there in its serene approach to the rough passage beyond. He sat there, the wind lifting the hair upon his forehead, pondering what she had said.
Was it possible that a man could walk blindly by his chances for thirty-five years, only to be grasping, empty-palmed, after them when they had whisked away? For what else did his complainings signify? He had lacked the courage or the quickness, or some essential, as she had said, to lay hold of them before they fled away beyond his reach forever.
There was a chance beside him going to waste tonight–a golden, great chance. Not for lack of 95 courage would he let it pass, he reflected; but let it pass he must. He wanted to tell her that he would be a different man if he could remain near her all the rest of his years; he longed to say that he desired dearly to help her smooth the rough land and plant the trees and draw the water in that place which she dreamed of and called home.