“Ah! yes!” he sighed, the dark look still upon his face. “It is my test. I have to choose between love and duty.”
“And you choose the latter?”
“I am trying to do so. With God’s help I hope to succeed,” he answered, in a hoarse voice. “If love proves too strong, then I fall back to the level from which I have striven to rise—the level of the ordinary man.”
“But are you certain you were not mistaken in the object of the lady in joining the work in which you were engaged? May not she have been determined to become self-sacrificing in the holy cause, just as you were?”
“No,” he answered very decisively, “I cannot believe it. There were facts which were suspicious.”
“What kind of facts?”
“In various ways she betrayed her insincerity of purpose,” he answered. “Her friends were wealthy, and the vicar was acute enough to see that if she were encouraged she would bring additional funds to the church. But the poor themselves, always quick to recognise true sincerity, very soon discerned that she visited them without having their welfare at heart, and consequently imposed upon her.”
There was nothing sanctimonious or puritanical about Jack Yelverton. The words he uttered came direct from his faithful, honest heart.
“And yet you love her!” I remarked, amazed. “That’s just it. My admiration of her grace and beauty ripened into love before I was aware of it. I struggled against it, but became overwhelmed. Had she not feigned sincerity and taken up the work that I was doing, I should, I believe, have proposed marriage to her. But her action in trying to appear solicitous after the welfare of the sick, when I knew that her thoughts were all of the world, caused me a revulsion of feeling which ended in my resignation and escape.”
“Escape!” I echoed. “One would think that you had fled from some feared catastrophe.”