"You love me!" he murmured, carried with that from despair to exultation.
"But if you could only know how much."
"I do know. I do know, dear. I wish that all the world—I'd hate to have them know, for it's just ours—but for the sake of faltering faith they ought to know what you've been to me this summer."
"Then, Karl,"—this after one of their precious silences—"I want to ask you something. It is hard to say it just right, but I'll try. You know that I love you—that we have one of those supreme loves which come at rare times—perhaps for the sake of what you call faltering faith. But, Karl—this will sound hard—but after all, doesn't it fail? Fail of being supreme? Doesn't it fail if it is not—satisfying? I don't mean that it should make up to one for such a thing as being blind, but if in spite of love like ours life seems unbearable to you without your work—why then, dear, doesn't it fail?"
He was long in answering, and then he only said, slowly: "I see. I see how you have reasoned it out. I wonder if I can make you understand?"
"Ernestine,"—the old enthusiasm had kindled in his face with the summoning of the thoughts—"no painter or sculptor ever loved his work more than I loved mine. And I had that same kind of joy in it; that delight in it as a beautiful thing to achieve. That may seem strange to you. But the working out of something I was able to do brought me the same delight the working out of a picture brings to you. Dear, it was my very soul. And so, instead of there being two forces in my life after I had you, it was just the one big thing. You made me bigger and because I was bigger I wanted to do bigger things. Don't you see that?"
She held his hand a little more closely in response. He knew that she understood.
"Don't think I have given up—why of course I haven't. I will adjust myself in a little time—do what there is for me to do. I am going to see immediately about a secretary, a stenographer—no, Ernestine, I don't want you to do that. It's merely routine work, and I want you to do your own work. One of us must do the work it was intended we should. I could have gone on with some lecture work at the university, but I—this year I couldn't quite do that. I'll be more used to handling myself by next year, have myself better in hand in every way. I couldn't quite stand the smell from the laboratory just now. This year I shall work on those books I've told you about; just class-room books—I never could write anything that would be literature—I'm not built for that; but these things will be useful, I've felt the need of something of the sort in my own classes. I'll always make a living, Ernestine—don't you ever worry about that! And the world won't know—why should we let it know we're not satisfied? But I can't hide from you that it is the other, the creative work—the—oh, I tell you, Ernestine, the fellows up there in the far north don't have all the fun! It may be great to push one's way through icebergs—but I know something that is greater than that! They say there is a joy in standing where no man ever stood before, and I can see that, for I too have stood where no man ever stood before! But I'm ahead of them—mine's the greater joy—for I knew that my territory was worth something—that the world would follow where I had led!"—The old force, fire, joyous enthusiasm had bounded into his voice. But it died away, and it was with a settling to sadness he said, "You see, little girl, if there was a wonderful picture you had conceived—your masterpiece, something you had reason to feel would stand as one of the world's great pictures, if you had begun on it, were in the heat of it, and then had to give it up, it would not quite satisfy you, would it, dear, to settle down and write some textbooks on art?"
"Karl—it's I who have been blind! I tried so hard to understand—but
I—oh, Karl—can't we do something? Can't we do something about it?"
"I was selfish to tell you—but it is good to have you understand."