Jerome presented his case tersely, the arguments were all clearly determined beforehand. “This twenty-five thousand dollars,” he said, “will lift me and mine out of grinding poverty. If I give it up, my father and mother and sister will have none of it. Father has come home unfit for any further struggles; mother has aged during the last few days. She was nerved up to bear trouble, the shock of joy has taken her last strength. She can do little now. This money will make them happy and comfortable through their last days. If I give up this money, they may come to want. I have lost my work in Dale, like the rest; I may not be able to get a living, even; we may all suffer. This money will give my sister a marriage-portion, and possibly influence Doctor Prescott to favor his son's choice. If that does not, my failure to carry out my part of the agreement, and the doctor's consequent release from his, may influence him to make no further opposition. If I give the money, and so force the doctor to give his, or put him to shame for refusing, Elmira can never marry Lawrence. I can give more to Uncle Ozias than he would receive as his share of a common division. I can send Henry Judd to Boston to have his eyes cured. And—I can marry Lucina Merritt. She loves me, she is waiting for me. I have not answered her letter. She is wondering now why I do not come. If I give up the money, I can never marry her—I can never come.”
Then the great still voice, which was, to his conception, within him, yet without, through all nature, had its turn, and Jerome listened.
Then he answered, fiercely, as to spoken arguments. “I know the whole is greater than the parts; I know that to make a whole village prosperous and happy is more than the welfare of three or four, but the three and the four come first, and that which I would have for myself is divine, and of God, and I cannot be what I would be without it, for no man who hungers gets his full strength. If I give this, it is all. I can make no more of my life.”
He looked as if he listened again for a moment, and then stood up. “Well,” he said, “it is true, if a man gives his all he can do no more, and no more can be asked of him. What I have said I will do, I will do, and I will save neither myself nor mine by a lie which I must lie to—my own soul!”
Jerome went down the path to the road, but stopped suddenly, as if he had got a blow. “Oh, my God!” he cried, “Lucina!” All at once a consideration had struck him which had never fully done so before. All at once he grasped the possibility that Lucina might suffer from his sacrifice as much as he. “I can bear it—myself,” he groaned, “but Lucina, Lucina; suppose—it should kill her—suppose it should—break her heart. I am stronger to suffer than she. If I could bear hers and mine, if I could bear it all. Oh, Lucina, I cannot hurt you—I cannot, I cannot! It is too much to ask. God, I cannot!”
Jerome stood still, in an involuntary attitude of defiance. His arm was raised, his fist clinched, as if for a blow; his face uplifted with stern reprisal; then his arm dropped, his tense muscles relaxed. “I could not marry her if I did not give it up,” he said. “I should not be worthy of her; there is no other way.”
Chapter XXXVIII
Jerome went to Lawyer Means's that night. Means, himself, answered his knock, and Jerome opened abruptly upon the subject in his mind. “I want to give away that money, as I said I would,” he declared.
The lawyer peered above a flaring candle into the darkness. “Oh, it is you, is it! Come in.”
“No, I can't come in. It isn't necessary. I have nothing to say but that. I want to give away the money, according to that paper you drew up, and I want you to arrange it.”