For the first time she realised to the full his ghastly thinness, the age in his hair, and contrasted it, agonizingly, with the proud strength and youth she had known long ago.
"Don't cry, little girl," he soothed her. "I'm all right. It's not too late. I——"
Then he remembered——
Remembered the situation in Black Elk—that in a few minutes he must join issue single-handed with a hostile crowd—and, worse than that, face certain death.
Slowly, the awful cruelty of the position sank into his breast; that, just when, after fifteen dreary years, Frances had been given back to him, he was required by circumstances to give her up again.
The iron hand of Duty had him in its grip, was crushing him—robbing him of everything.
Why had Frances been given to him, at this, of all times, when he must give her up so soon? Better if she had not come at all. It was not fair—it was hideous—that he should be faced with such a choice as this——
The choice between his duty and his great love.
Yet that choice he had to make. To the meeting he must go—after a little half-hour of ecstasy—half an hour in fifteen years!—he must say 'Goodbye.'
The Human Parson's words came back to him now, in all their awful truth: