“Barbara, it is not your heart that is hard now. God has given this love to us, and what God gives, who shall forbid?”
She hung her head and sighed.
“I am wondering, John.”
“Well, my life?”
“What will happen, what we must do—what the end may be.”
He looked at her a moment in silence, and then spoke like a man whose strength is in his own heart.
“Child, there is one good and certain thing with us—let us hold to it, you and I together. I will take shame from no man, and no lie from any living throat. If there should be dark days, let them come; I will not let you go from me—no, for here life is, nor can there be sin or shame in that which God has given.”
She looked up at him quickly with a great brightness of the eyes.
“John, I cannot, I could not, stand all alone now.”
“Why, my desire, what more can a man pray for!”