“You love me!” he repeated.

“Yes, yes, Ben dear, I do love you.  I love you as I never thought to be permitted to love.  Do you want to know what I did that second day on the Rock—­the day you first showed me what you really were?  The day you told me of your old home and the great tree?  It was all so peaceful, and tender, and comforting, so sweet and pure, that it rested me.  I felt, here is a man at last who could not misunderstand me, could not be abrupt, and harsh, and cruel.  I said to myself, ’He is not perfect nor does he expect perfection.’  I shut my eyes, and then something choked me, and the tears came.  I cried out loud, ’Oh, to be what I was, to give again what I have not!  O God, give me back my heart as it once was, and let me love!’ Yes, Ben dear, I said ‘love.’  And then I was not happy any more all day.  But God answered that prayer, Ben dear, and we do love one another now, and that is why we can look at things together, and see what is best for us both.”

“You love me!” he exclaimed for the third time.

“And now, dear, we must talk plainly and calmly.  You have seen what my family is.”

“I don’t know, Mary, that I can make you understand at all,” began Bennington helplessly.  “I can’t express it even to myself.  Our people are so different.  My training has been so different.  All this sort of thing means so much to us, and so little to you.”

“I know exactly,” she interrupted.  “I have read, and I have lived East.  I can appreciate just how it is.  See if I can not read your thoughts.  My family is uneducated.  If it becomes your family, your own parents will be more than grieved, and your friends will have little to do with you.  You have also duties toward your family, as a family.  Is that it?”

“Yes, that is it,” answered he, “but there are so many things it does not say.  It seems to me it has come to be a horrible dilemma with me.  If I do what I am afraid is my duty to my family and my people, I will be unhappy without you forever.  And if I follow my heart, then it seems to me I will wrong myself, and will be unhappy that way.  It seems a choice of just in what manner I will be miserable!” he ended with a ghastly laugh.

“And which is the most worth while?” she asked in a still voice.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” he cried miserably.  “I must think.”

He looked out straight ahead of him for some time.  “Whichever way I decide,” he said after a little, “I want you to know this, Mary:  I love you, and I always will love you, and the fact that I choose my duty, if I do, is only that if I did not, I would not consider myself worthy even to look at you.”  A silence fell on them again.

“I can not live West,” said he again, as though he had been arguing this point in his mind and had just reached the conclusion of it.  “My life is East; I never knew it until now.”  He hesitated.  “Would you—­that is, could you—­I mean, would your family have to live East too?”