"But we needn't go out to look for martyrdom either—we can trust life for that," said Hilary bitterly.
She went away, reluctantly, unsatisfied. She had wanted, expected, one of those long talks, confidential yet impersonal, that had meant so much to her during the year past. Never before had he treated her this way, he had always had time for her, had shown an eager interest in her difficulties. Her face was clouded as she walked slowly home. She was bent on keeping this relation with her spiritual teacher just as it had been. But now she wondered if her marriage was going to make a difference, had already disturbed and troubled it. Why should that be? It made no difference to her, why should it to him?
She did not want to think that Hilary was a man like other men, she refused to think of him in that way. No, he was better, higher, he was above personal feelings—that was her idea of him. She knew that he cared about her, but the image of the shepherd and his sheep, the pastor and his flock, dwelt in her mind. If she was distinguished from the rest of the flock by a special care, then it was the mystic love of a soul for another soul, it had nothing to do with mere human love, the desire for personal satisfaction, for caresses and companionship. To see Hilary seeking such things would spoil completely her idea of him. She saw him as a sort of saint, who denied the flesh. Did he not live in the most uncomfortable way, eating hardly enough to keep body and soul together, as the widow said, and working beyond his strength, always pale and tired-looking? He was devoted to service. It was impossible to think of him as taking thought for the morrow, for food and raiment, or as married and having a family.
She remembered how, when he had first come, the ladies of the congregation had tried to make him comfortable—one had even worked him a pair of slippers—and how he had brushed their ministrations aside. He was subject to severe colds, but by now they had learned not to offer any remedies, or even express solicitude. Mary never had offended in that way. She liked his carelessness about himself, his shabby clothes and frayed tie. She felt that probably he would work himself to death, would go into a decline and die in a few years, but she did not grieve over this prospect as the other sisters did. Truly the earth had no hold on him, he was already like a spirit.
She had been profoundly shocked by her father's suggestion that she might marry Hilary—the more so as the idea had before occurred to her that possibly Hilary thought of it. But she had rejected this idea, with all her obstinacy refused to consider it. Now it came back to her, but she denied it. She would not have her idol spoiled by any such feet of clay.
The fact that Hilary repulsed with irritation any attempts to idolize him, or to regard him as a superior being, only affirmed her conviction that he was one. As such he was precious to her, and as such she would keep him.