Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/75

Rh it will mean to the sorrowful world! See," he explained, solemnly; "we poor creatures cannot conceive that of which we have had no experience: the unborn child cannot know the meaning of life. If the babe in the womb questioned, What is birth? what is living? could even its own mother tell it? Nay! So we, questioning: 'God, what is death? what is immortality?' Not even He can tell us. The unborn soul, carried in the womb of Time, must wait death to know the things of Eternity, just as the unborn babe waits birth to know the things of life. But now, now, is coming to the world the gift of sight!"

There was a pause; Lizzie Graham swallowed once, and set her lips; then she said, "I am afraid, Nathaniel, that I—I can't marry you—because—"

"Marry me?" he said, with a confused look.

"We were to get married to-day, you know, Nathaniel?"

"Oh yes," he said.

"Yes; but—but I can't, Nathaniel."

"Never mind," he said. "Shall we go now, kind woman?" He rose, smiling, and stretched out one groping hand. Involuntarily she took it; then stood still, and tried to speak. He turned his patient face towards her. "Must we wait longer?" he asked, gently.

"Oh, Nathaniel, I—I don't know what to say, but—"

A startled look came into his face. "Is anything the matter?"

"Oh!" Lizzie said. "It just breaks my heart!"

His face turned suddenly gray; he sat down, trembling; the contents of his bag rattled, and something snapped—perhaps another mirror broke. He put one hand up to his head.

"It's that pension," Lizzie said, brokenly; "if I get married, I lose it. An' we wouldn't have a cent to live on. You—you see how it is, Nathaniel?"

He began to whisper to himself, not listening to her. There was a long pause, broken by his strange whispering.

Lizzie Graham looked at him, and turned her eyes away, wincing with pain;—the tears were rolling slowly down his cheeks. She put her hand on his shoulder in a passion of pity; then, suddenly, fiercely, she gathered the poor bowed head against her soft breast. "I don't care! My name ain't worth as much as that! Let 'em talk. Nathaniel, are you willin' not to get married?"

But she had to speak twice before he heard her. Then he said, looking up at her out of his despair: "What? What did you say?"

"Nathaniel," she explained, kneeling beside him, holding his hand against her bosom and stroking it softly, "if you were to come and live with me, and we were not married—"

But he was not listening. A door opened down-stairs, and there was a noisy burst of laughter; then it closed, and the hot room was still.

"Emily Butterfield will stand my friend," she said, her lips tightening. Then, gently: "We won't get married, Nathaniel. You will just come and visit me until—until the machine is finished."

"You will let me come?" he said, with a gasp; "you will let me finish my invention?" His face was flooded with its mystical joy. He got up, trembling, clutching his bag, and holding out one hand to clasp hers.

Lizzie Graham took it, and stood stock-still for one hard moment....

Then she led him down-stairs, out upon the porch, past the loafers gaping and nudging each other.

"Goin' to be married, after all, Mis' Graham?" some one said.

And Lizzie Graham turned and faced them. "No," she said, calmly.

Then they went out into the sunshine together.