some serious professional lessons which were the
simplest human ones.

But the question that I spoke of was on this wise. It did not indeed
wear the form, but she gave it the hospitality, of a question.

"I wish I knew," I said, "why you have not married. I wish you thought
me worthy to know."

"The whole world might know," she answered, with her sweet
straightforward look.

"And I, then, as the most unworthy part of it?" For my heart sank at
the terms upon which I was admitted to the answer.

"I have never seen any man whom I wished to marry. I have no other
reason."

"Nor I," I said, "a woman"-- And there I paused. Yes, precisely
there, where I had not meant to; for she gave me a large, grave look,
upon which I could no more have intruded than I could have touched her.

This was in September. The year had made the longest circuit of my
life before I gathered the courage to finish that sentence, broken by
the weight of a delicate look; before I dared to say to her:--

"Nor I a woman--until now."

I hope I was what we call "above" the petty masculine instinct which
values a woman who is hard to win chiefly for that circumstance.
Perhaps I was not as I thought myself. But it seemed to me that the
anguish of wooing in doubt overcame all paltry sense of pleasure in
pursuit of my delight. My thoughts of her moved like slow travellers
up the sides of a mountain of snow. That other feeling would have been
a descent to me. So wholly did she rule my soul--how could I stoop to
care the more for hers, because she was beyond my reach?

Be this as it may, beyond my reach for yet another year she did remain.
Gently as she inclined toward me, to love she made no haste. The force
of my feeling was so great at times, it seemed incredible that hers did
not rush to meet me like part of the game incoming wave broken by a
coast island and joining--seemingly two, but in reality one--upon the
shoreward side. For the first time in my life, in that rising tide of
my great love, I truly knew humility. My unworthiness of her was more
present with me even than my longing for her. If I could have scourged
my soul clear of all unfitness for her as our Saviour was said to have
scourged the tradesmen out of the Temple, I should have counted myself
blessed, even though I never won her; though I beat out my last hope of
her with the very blows which I inflicted upon myself.

In the vibrations of my strong emotion it used to