He took her in his arms and kissed her, not as he would have kissed her an hour before, with passion, but in reverence and humility, in love too sacred for words. Never till now had he known what a woman’s love was, how much it gave, how little it asked, how pure in its highest form it could be—and how strong! Nor ever till now had he known her, this girl to whom he had once presumed to teach firmness, whose weakness he had taken on himself to guide, whom he had thought to encourage, to strengthen, to arm—he, who had not been worthy to kiss the hem of her robe!
Oh, the wonderful power of love, which had transformed her! Which had made her what she was, and now laid him in the dust before her!
Work for her, wait for her, live for her? Ah, would he not, and deem himself happy though the years brought him no nearer, though the memory of her, transfiguring his whole life, proved his only and full reward!
CHAPTER XXIX
An hour after Arthur had left the house on the Monday morning Josina went slowly up the stairs to her father’s room. She was young and the stairs were shallow, but the girl’s knees shook under her as she mounted them, as she mounted them one by one, while her hand trembled on the banister. Before now the knees of brave men, going on forlorn hopes, have shaken under them, but, like these men, Josina went on, she ascended step by step. She was frightened, she was horribly frightened, but she had made a vow to herself and she would carry it out. How she would carry it out, how she would find words to blurt out the truth, how she would have the courage to live through that which would follow, she did not know, she could not conceive. But her mind was fixed.
She reached the shabby landing on which two or three sheep-skins laid at the doors of the rooms served for carpet, and there, indeed, she paused awhile and pressed her hand to her side to still the beating of her heart. She gazed through the window. On the sweep below, Calamy was shaking out the cloth, while two or three hens clucked about his feet, and a cat seated at a distance watched the operation with dignity. In the field beyond the brook a dog barked joyously as it rounded up some sheep. Miss Peacock’s voice, scolding a maid, came up from below. All was going on as usual, going on callous and heedless: while she—she had that before her which turned her sick and faint, which for her, timid and subject, was almost worse than death.
And with her on this forlorn hope went no comrades, no tramp of marching feet, no watching eyes of thousands, no bugle note to cheer her. Only Clement’s shade—waiting.
She might still draw back. But when she had once spoken there could be no drawing back. A voice whispered in her ear that she had better think it over—just once more, better wait a little longer to see if aught would happen, revolve it once again in her mind. Possibly there might be some other, some easier, some safer way.
But she knew what that whisper meant, and she turned from the window and grasped the handle of the door. She went in. Her father was sitting beside the fire. His back was towards her, he was smoking his after-breakfast pipe. She might still retreat, or—or she might say what she liked, ask perhaps if he wanted anything. He would never suspect, never conceive in his wildest moments the thing that she had come to confess. It was not too late even now—to draw back.
She went to the other side of the table on which his elbow rested, and she stood there, steadying herself by a hand which she laid on the table. She was sick with fear, her tongue clung to her mouth, her very lips were white. But she forced herself to speak. “Father, I have something—to tell you,” she said.