“Because you told me that your life hung in the balance, and that I was your only hope and aim,” she answered. Her voice trembled slightly, and her eyes softened as she remembered how nearly he had spoken the truth. “You had been my first and most faithful friend. I considered my obligations stronger to you than any one else. I could not tolerate the thought of your suffering through me, when I was the only person you cared for.”
While she spoke, his eyes were downcast, and a deep color burned in his face. “Did my dependence on you attract your affection?” he asked, still looking down.
“It attracted my pity and anxiety,” she replied, without hesitation. “I should respect more a man who would be able to live without me. I do not believe that these violent feelings are either healthy or lasting; and I would not choose to act the Eastern myth of the tortoise supporting a world.”
“Oh! how mean I was!” he exclaimed. “How contemptibly selfish! Let me tell you all. I had a strong affection for you, that is true; but I can see now that there were unworthy motives mingled with it. There were pride, ambition, and self-will. I was determined to take you away from Carl Yorke. I knew that he thought of you, and I believed that he would win you, unless I prevented it. Your antecedents of birth, your tastes and social position, your kind of education, all were the same, and made you suited to each other. I said to myself that my being a Catholic gave me the precedence; but in my heart I knew that there was no reason why he, as well as I, should not receive the gift of faith. I knew, indeed, that his friendship for Alice Mills had predisposed him toward it, and that he read Catholic books. But I was determined to have you. I did not dare to ask if you would be quite content. I would not contemplate any other possibility. When I asked you if you were willing, it was only after you had promised. I confess this with shame and contrition!”
“Dick,” Edith asked breathlessly, “have you quite got over caring very much about me? Are you not disappointed?”
He raised his face, and all the shame and distress passed away from it. “The only disappointment I am now capable of feeling,” he said, with the emphasis of truth, “would be in case any earthly object should come between me and God. In the last few weeks I have learned to shrink with fear and aversion from all earthly affection. There is nothing but harm in those attachments which are so strong that the loss of their object brings destruction. They are mistaken in their aim. Why, Edith, what I worshipped in you was not simply what you are, a good and amiable girl, but a goddess. You were magnified in my eyes, I put you in a niche. That niche is now empty. Or, no!” he added, raising his brightening eyes, “it is not empty, but the right one stands there. You could never have satisfied the enthusiasm of my expectation. The great and wonderful good which I vaguely looked for with you, I should never have won. I mistook my object.”
He looked out thoughtfully, and she sat looking at him. At length he said, with a faint smile, “I wrote you last year of a visit I paid to the island and cave of Capri. That scene is like my past life. That cave was an enchanted place, so fair, so blue, so unreal! All ordinary critical sense deserted me as I gazed. I could easily have believed that the walls and ceiling were of jewels, and the watery floor some magical blue wine. As I sat in the boat and looked back, I saw a white star in the distance. Everything but that, and a long white ray from it, was blue. I rowed toward that star, I looked at it as my goal, just as I made you my goal. But when I came near, I found that it was no star. It was only the low entrance to the cave. Or, rather, it was for me the passage to sunshine and the heavens. And that you have been to me, Edith,” he said, turning toward her. “Thank God that your influence with me has always been for good, and that, in leaving you, I progress rather than change! You inspired me, and kept me from what was low, when I had no religion to help me. I can see it all now. The very excess and enthusiasm of my affection for you was necessary in order to govern me and keep me from harm. Besides, it is my nature to do with my might what my hands find to do. I was not then capable of resolving to do right for the sake of right; but when I was strong enough, then you drew aside, and left me face to face with God!”
His breath came quickly, and his wide-opened eyes were fixed on the western sky, and caught its golden light.
“Of course there was a struggle,” he resumed, “for I was sincere. But that is over. My unreasonable affection for you is as thoroughly eradicated as if it had never been a part of my life. I am ashamed of having so given myself up to it.”
Edith hesitated, then put the test. “Dick, I must be satisfied that I am really free. If you were sure now that no other, deeper sympathy stood between me and you, and that I were ready and willing to fulfil my engagement with you, would you still say that God alone held your heart?”