ed to me
to think," she said gently but bravely, "my life could ever end in
anything else but martyrdom. It MUST needs be so with all true
lives, and all good ones. For whoever sees the truth, whoever
strives earnestly with all his soul to be good, must be raised many
planes above the common mass of men around him; he must be a moral
pioneer, and the moral pioneer is always a martyr. People won't
allow others to be wiser and better than themselves, unpunished.
They can forgive anything except moral superiority. We have each
to choose between acquiescence in the wrong, with a life of ease,
and struggle for the right, crowned at last by inevitable failure.
To succeed is to fail, and failure is the only success worth aiming
at. Every great and good life can but end in a Calvary."

"And I want to save you from that," Alan cried, leaning over her
with real tenderness, for she was already very dear to him. "I
want to save you from yourself; I want to make you think twice
before you rush headlong into such a danger."

"NOT to save me from myself, but to save me from my own higher and
better nature," Herminia answered with passionate seriousness.
"Alan, I don't want any man to save me from that; I want you rather
to help me, to strengthen me, to sympathize with me. I want you to
love me, not for my face and form alone, not for what I share with
every other woman, but for all that is holiest and deepest within
me. If you can't love me for that, I don't ask you to love me; I
want to be loved for what I am in myself, for the yearnings I
possess that are most of all peculiar to me. I know you are
attracted to me by those yearnings above everything; why wish me
untrue to them? It was because I saw you could sympathize with me
in these impulses that I said to myself, Here, at last, is the man
who can go through life as an aid and a spur to me. Don't tell me
I was mistaken; don't belie my belief. Be what I thought you were,
what I know you are. Work with me, and help me. Lift me! raise
me! exalt me! Take me on the sole terms on which I can give myself
up to you."

She stretched her arms out, pleading; she turned those subtle eyes
to him, appealingly. She was a beautiful woman. Alan Merrick was
human. The man in him gave way; he seized her in his clasp, and
pressed her close to his bosom. It heaved tumultuously. "I could
do anything for you, Herminia," he cried, "and indeed, I do
sympathize with you. But give