"I must go." Neville seemed to be talking to himself rather than to Huntoon, and to fear most of all that he should lose the power that floated just before him, still tantalizingly beyond his grasp.
"Why must you go?"
"There is some one there who needs me. I cannot recall her name, but I seem to see her face and I hear her voice. I wish—I wish—I could call her by name." Piteously he turned to Huntoon, seeking aid.
"Is the name you seek Elinor—Elinor Calvert?"
"God bless you! Yes; Elinor. Say it again to me if my mind wanders. Elinor! Oh, I do love thee! That face of thine—it has hovered in my dreams, but I thought it was an angel's. I remember it now, and with that smile on it and those words of thine, 'I think if thou shouldst put thine arms around me and whisper it in my ear I should believe!' Oh, Elinor, my love! Dost thou love me, dear, still? But the wall still stands between us."
"What wall?"
"The smirch upon mine honor. She would have been mine in spite of it, but I swore an oath to God never to call her wife unless I could offer her a name as clear in the sight of men as in His."
The strong man bowed his face upon his arms and wept, silently at first, then with hard, heart-rending sobs, and Huntoon stood by awed and helpless. It was the birth-cry of a soul beginning life for the second time.
At length the sobs ceased, and Neville rose and stood upright, looking inches taller than before, as though a miracle had been wrought and thought had added a cubit to his stature. He smiled, and the smile was sadder than the tears.
"Help me, Huntoon," he said, "for I am as a little child, and I have a man's work before me."