The other voice I did not know; it was husky and broken.
There was silence again, and I heard a bustling and tramping about below, and outside the window locusts buzzing shrilly.
Voices again. I could not but hear. It was Mildred’s voice. “But did you love me then in the beginning?”
There was no answer at first; then it came, a little stronger and steadier than before. “I should have loved you then if I had dared, but I was pledged to Agnes; she had promised to be my wife. There came a day at Concord when I saw my danger. I knew that I must not dare to see you again. I prayed that I might be kept from being false to the woman whom I had asked to love me, so I went away and tried to forget. After all, I had known you for only a few days, and I had known her from childhood. She was true as steel. She trusted me; and when with her again I was glad to find at last that life could still be rich and sweet, and I be spared from baseness.”
“Then why, why”—Mildred began; but she hesitated, and her voice died away.
“It came about in this way,” said the other voice after a pause. “I had studied for the ministry, you know. Agnes had rejoiced to think that she was to share my work. I had decided from the first to give myself to the home mission work either in the far West or among the colored people at the South. She was all enthusiasm and zeal. She was a noble woman; but oh—well, it is a long story, a long story.” Another pause; then, “Do you know how unjust and bitter a woman can be when she thinks that she alone is intrusted with the decrees of the Almighty?
“As her lover, I must be frank with her, I must conceal nothing. I told her all, little by little, of what I had come to believe and see. It only made her tremble with horror. She saw that I was not ready to preach the gospel which she believed. She felt that I was going no-whither. ‘You have denied God’s Word and made your reason your God,’ she said. ‘I can never dare trust my future with you unless you promise me once and forever to abandon reading these dreadful books which are leading you farther and farther from the truth.’
“I tried argument, but it was of no avail. ‘I am no logician; I cannot argue and reason with a college-bred man like you. You could readily refute my simple talk to your own satisfaction,’ she said; ‘but all the philosophy in the world cannot change my faith. My husband’s God must be the one whom I serve.’
“I did not know how I had really loved her until I found I was breaking her heart. It was pitiful. I tried to show her how I loved the same God whom she served, but she said, while the tears choked her voice:
“‘No, Ralph, let us not deceive ourselves; we look at the world in a radically different way. There can be no compromises so long as this exists.’ So we parted.”