"It seems now that I had to live it," Lyman answered. "The actual work did not take long, but the dreams, the night-mares, were continued year after year. To be condemned to write a conscientious book is a severe trial, almost a cruel punishment, and I am not surprised that the critics, sentenced to read it, should look upon it as an additional pain thrust into their lives."
The talk wandered into the discussion of books in general. The young woman told of the great libraries she had visited abroad. The printer had helped to set up a Bible and he gave an amusing account of the mistakes that had crept into the proof-sheets. A careless fellow had made one of the Prophets stricken with grip instead of grief, and another one had the type declare that Moses lifted up the sea serpent in the wilderness. The bar of sunlight passed beyond the window ledge and the sick man fell into silence. Eva rose to go. Lyman said that he would walk a part of the way with her. She smiled but said nothing. They bade the invalid and his wife good-bye and passed out into the shaded thoroughfare. A man stared at them, but a woman passed with merely a glance.
"Even in a village a wonder wears away after awhile," said Lyman. "Yes," she laughed, "our strange relationship has almost ceased to be an oddity."
They turned into a lane. He helped her across a rivulet and felt her hand grow warm in his grasp. She looked up at him and his blood tingled. He felt a sense of gladness and then remembered that she had praised his book. It was a victory to know that it had broken through her father's hauberk of prejudice. He spoke of Sawyer. She had heard of his narrow escape from drowning; indeed, he had called at the house.
"He did not hesitate to acknowledge everything," she said, "and I never liked him half so well as I did today."
"But you couldn't like him well enough to marry him," Lyman was weak enough to say.
"Oh, no; I liked him because he acknowledged your generosity," she frankly confessed. Lyman had weaknesses, and one of them was an under-appraisal of self. At times and in some men this is a virtue, but more often it is a crime committed against one's own chance of prosperity. The people's candidate is the man who loudest avows his fitness for the office.
"You remember last Sunday as you were driving away from the church—" he said.
"Yes—" she answered, walking close beside him.