Will you go?"--looking up with blanched cheek. "You were never so noble
as now, Paul Blecker, when you left me to myself to judge. If you had only
touched my love"--

"You would have yielded. I know. I'm not utterly base, Grey. I am glad,"
his face growing red, "you think I have been honorable. I tried to be. I
want to act as a man of gentle blood and a Christian would do,--though I'm
not either."

It was a chivalric face that looked down on her, though nervous and
haggard. She saw that. How bare and mean her life yawned before her that
moment! how all quiet and joy waited for her in the arms hanging
listlessly by his side, as if their work in life were done! Must she
sacrifice her life to an eternal law of God? _Was_ this Free Love so vile
a thing?

"Will you go?"--rising suddenly. "While you stand there, the Devil comes
very near me, Paul." She held out her hand. "You would despise me, if I
yielded now."

"I might, but I would love you all the same, Grey,"--with a miserable
attempt at a smile. He took the hand, holding it in his a moment. "Good
bye,"--all feeling frozen out of his voice. "You've done right, Grey. It
will be better for us some day. We'll think of that,--always."

"You suffer. I have made your life wretched,"--clinging suddenly to him,

"No."--turning his head away. "Never mind. I am not a child, Grey. Men do
not die of grief. They take up hard work, and that strengthens them. And
my little girl will be happy. Her God will bless her; for she _is_ a true,
good girl. Yes, true. You judged rightly."

For Blecker had taken up the alien Socialist dogma that day sincerely, but
driven to it by passion: now he swayed back to his old-fashioned faith in
marriage, as one comes to solid land after a plunge in the upheaving surf.

"Good bye, Paul."

The sunlight fell on their faces with a white brilliance, as they stood,
their hands clasped, for a moment. The girl never saw it afterwards
without a sudden feeling of hate, as though it had jeered at her mortal
pain. Then Paul Blecker stood alone by the river-side, with only a dull
sense that the day was bright and unfeeling, and that something was gone
from the world, never to come back. The life before he had known her
offered itself to him again in a bare remembrance: the heat to get
on,--the keen bargains,--friendships with fellows that shook him off when
they married, not caring that it hurt him,--he, without a home or
religion, keeping out of vice only