At last she turned abruptly, and said, "Bradley, I'm going home."
It made him catch his breath. "Oh, no, I can't let you do that, Ida."
"Yes, I must go; I can't stay here. That play to-night has wakened my sleeping conscience. I must go back to the West."
"But, Ida, you've only been here four weeks; I don't see why"—
"Because my work calls me. I am cursed. I can't enjoy this life any more, because I can't forget those poor souls on the lonely farms grinding out their lives in gloomy toil; I must go back and help them. I feel like a thief, to be living in this beautiful room and hearing these plays and concerts, when they are shut out from them."
Bradley experienced a sudden impulse of rebellion. "But we have done our best, haven't we?"
"Yes, but we must continue to do our best right along; the battle is only half won yet, and I've enlisted to the end. Besides," she said, looking up at him with a faint smile, "I've got to go right into your district and pave the way for your re-election. If you expect to do your part here, I must do my part in electing you." She looked old and care-worn. "You know how much good it does the poor wives and mothers to meet me and to hear me. Now, we mustn't be selfish, dear. We must not forget that neither of us was born to idleness. I have been very happy here with you, but there is something of John the Baptist in me: I must go forth and utter the word—the word of the Lord."
They fell into silence again, and Bradley, facing the fire, felt a burning pain in his staring eyes. Her presence had been so inexpressibly sweet and helpful he could not bear to let her go. And yet he understood her feeling. Slowly through years of thought he had grown, till now he was level with her altruistic conception of life. When he spoke again it was in his apparently passionless way.
"All right, Ida. We enlisted for the whole war." He was able to smile a little as he looked up at her. "My congressional career will soon end, anyhow."
She rose and came to him and put her arm about his neck. "As a matter of fact, you'll work better without me, Bradley, and your public career must not end for many years. You must keep your place for my sake as well as for the sake of the wronged—and also for the sake of—of our children, Bradley." Her voice grew tremulous toward the end, and a look of singular beauty came into her face.