"My darling," I murmured brokenly, "and how do you suppose I feel?"
"I know," she sobbed and gently, very much as Jimmie or Laura might have done, she put her arms about me and nestled as though I were some one old and fragile for whom she had a deep affection—but that was all. Alicia's first embrace!
And then I knew also. She did not, I trust, for an instant suspect the bitterness of the cup I was that moment draining. But why should I expect anything else? The guilt in my own heart tells me enough,—and too much—of exactly where I stand. Alicia is still a child. As yet evidently she did not even suspect that Pendleton was bent upon taking her also. Suppose I prevented that, then what of the other three whom, in another way, I love no less? My head was throbbing dizzily, my pulses were beating like drums. For me this was the supreme moment of anguish and sacrifice, the dark night of the soul, that noche oscura that St. John of the Cross knows so well how to describe, that shakes one's being and changes one's life forever more. My lot seemed to be to sacrifice and break myself in final and complete renunciation, to drain my cup of bitterness to its uttermost dregs.
For a moment the world was as a shadow, swaying, airy and insubstantial. The cowled monk that is buried somewhere within me was suddenly uppermost and the life of the world seemed sordid and leprous; a deadly thing rotted with lusts and passions, a thing to run away from—that was pulling me into its sensual center. But only for a moment.
Then suddenly the blood surged to my temples, as Alicia lay in my arms, and the ancient cunning of a thousand male ancestors, of savage hunters and crafty warriors who died that I might live, swept into my thews and nerves and brain and I crackled with eagerness to fight for my own.
No!—I would not—could not give up all that I held dear. I would fight! I gripped Alicia's shoulders in a spasm of fierce joy and in a hoarse guttural voice that surprised her no more than it surprised me, I breathed out:
"Never fear, Alicia—it can't be! It won't be. He hasn't done it yet. I'll do something—I don't know what as yet. But give me time—a little time—I'll work it out. We'll fight if we must—but we won't give up tamely!"
Alicia's warm cheek against mine, though with a trust that can only be described as childlike, was reward enough for victory, let alone for this still empty challenge. But an irresistible, throbbing feeling of confidence tells me that something will happen—that I shall win!
Is it simply the confidence of a fool, and the surge of melodrama that is never very far from any of us? Possibly. But my blood still throbs and my muscles still crackle with the strange eagerness and lust for battle. It may be that the fragrance and the starry look of Alicia that linger with me yet, the sweet joy and pride of Alicia when she returned my good-night kiss before she left me, the affection with which she clung, the reluctance with which she went, all have something to do with this new accession of courage. But I do not comfort myself with vain things. Alicia happens to be a girl whose affections have never been pampered by any doting parents. If she looks upon me in loco parentis, that ought to be enough for me. It is not enough. And the pain of that leaves a barbed sting in my breast. But that wound I shall carry gladly—I shall wear my hair shirt like the girl wife of Jacopone da Todi—if only I can play the man.
The evening and the morning were a day—the first day of a new life, and what a day!