Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/49

Rh superhuman unselfishness. To say that he never thought of Margaret as a man thinks of a woman who might be his wife, would not be true. Margaret was a very beautiful woman; and Karl Reutner was a man in whose veins ran blood both strong and pure; he could not hear the rustle of Margaret's gown without a faster beat to his pulse. Yet, when he thought of Margaret's possible wifehood, it was never of her wifehood to him. He could not forbear thinking what wifehood, what motherhood would be to her; he could not forbear thinking what it would be to a man, if Margaret were to put her arms around him; he could not forbear thinking how Margaret would look with her child at her breast. But it was as a man might think, kneeling before the holiest of Raphael's Madonnas. His sole desire in life was that Margaret should have happiness. Each smallest trifle in which he could add to that happiness, was a joy unspeakable; that she seemed content, even glad in the quiet home life which he shared, was a blessing so great, that even one day of it could almost be food for a lifetime, it seemed to him. The thought that it could not always be thus, he resolutely put away. But from the thought of asking Margaret to be his,—Karl Reutner's,—wife, his very soul would have recoiled as it would from a blasphemy.

And yet the day came when Margaret found herself obliged to say to him that she could not love him.