'I don’t suppose there’s a man on earth that ain’t said that from once to fifty times, just as much in earnest as Dick, and just as little thinkin' them words are the key in the Door—the door that gives on the road runnin' down to Hell or up to Heaven. You’ve got to move one way or the other if you open that door. It ain’t a road to linger on. Love marches.
'That was the way it come to me then. For most men, love marches.—But me. How about me? The love that come to me had been silent and patient. It’d sat in my heart like a bird on its nest. Was I different from other men? Did I ask less, give more? I was just a boy—how was I to know?
'It was Cynthy broke the tension. She was always a bit of a mischief. Suddenly she smiled an’ dimpled like the sun comin' out from a cloud. She caught Dick’s finger-tips quick an’ brushed 'em across her lips.
'"Well, Seth!" she says to me, cheerful and confident again.
'"Is he your choice, Cynthy?" said I. "Dare you leave us—all of us—an’ go to him forever?" I asked her, steadying my voice.
'She looked a little hurt and a little puzzled.
'"Has it come to that?" she asked me.
'"Mebbe it hasn’t with you," I answered, "but it has with Dick—an’ with me, Cynthy."
'She looked at me as if she didn’t know what I meant, and then the color rushed up into her face in a glorious flood.
'"Not—not you too, Seth?" she cried. "Oh—not you too!"