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Snow-Bound at Eagle's | Bret Harte | |
Chapter VII |
Page 7 of 9 |
"Ned can. I shall not abate a second." "But are you not mistaken in his feelings?" she continued hurriedly. "He certainly has not said anything to her." "That is his last hold on honor and reason. And to preserve that little intact he wants to run away at once." "But that would be very silly." "Do you think so?" he said, looking at her fixedly. "Why not?" she asked in her turn, but rather faintly. "I'll tell you why," he said, lowering his voice with a certain intensity of passion unlike his usual boyish lightheartedness. "Think of a man whose life has been one of alternate hardness and aggression, of savage disappointment and equally savage successes, who has known no other relaxation than dissipation and extravagance; a man to whom the idea of the domestic hearth and family ties only meant weakness, effeminacy, or--worse; who had looked for loyalty and devotion only in the man who battled for him at his right hand in danger, or shared his privations and sufferings. Think of such a man, and imagine that an accident has suddenly placed him in an atmosphere of purity, gentleness, and peace, surrounded him by the refinements of a higher life than he had ever known, and that he found himself as in a dream, on terms of equality with a pure woman who had never known any other life, and yet would understand and pity his. Imagine his loving her! Imagine that the first effect of that love was to show him his own inferiority and the immeasurable gulf that lay between his life and hers! Would he not fly rather than brave the disgrace of her awakening to the truth? Would he not fly rather than accept even the pity that might tempt her to a sacrifice?" |
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Snow-Bound at Eagle's Bret Harte |
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