Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/370

 correspondence she had promised him. The last paragraph of that note now took on a sinister meaning. He recalled it word by word:

"I feel like I can not trifle with you in this way again. It is humiliating to me and to you. I can see no light in our future. I release you from any tie I may have imposed on your life. I feel I have fallen short of what you deserve, but I am so situated between my mother's failing health and my father's will, and my love for them both, I can not help it. I will love you always, but you are free."

Was not this a kindly and final breaking of their pledge to one another? Yet she had not returned the little medal he had given her with that exchange of eternal love and faith. Could she keep this and really mean to break with him finally? He could not believe it.

His whole life had been dominated by this dream of an ideal love. For it he had denied himself the indulgences that his college mates and young associates had taken as a matter of course. He had never touched wine. He had never smoked. He had never learned the difference between a queen and jack in cards. He had kept away from women. He had given his body and soul to the service of his Ideal, and bent every energy to the development of his mind that he might grasp with more power its sweetness and beauty when realised.

Did it pay? The Flesh was shrieking this question now into the face of the Spirit?

He had met the One Woman his soul had desired above all others. There could be no mistake about that. And now she was failing him when he had laid at her feet his life. It made him sick to recall how utter had been his surrender.

Why should he longer deny the flesh, when the soul's dream failed the test of pain and struggle?