The Purchase Price eBook

Emerson Hough
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Purchase Price.

The Purchase Price eBook

Emerson Hough
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Purchase Price.

A sadness came upon her averted face.  “Only a bit of flotsam on the human wave.  How small we all are, any of us!  And there’s so much to be done!”

Half stumbling, he shifted his position, leaning his weight against the tall pillar of the gallery.  He could see her plainly.  In the light from the hall half her features were now thrown into Rembrandt lighting.  The roll of dark hair framed her face, highbred, aristocratic, yet wholly human and sweet.  Gravity sat on all her features; a woman for thought, said they.  A woman for dreams; so declared the fineness of brow and temple and cheek and chin, the hand—­which, lifted now for an instant, lingered at her throat.  But a woman for love! so said every throb of the pulse of the man regarding her.  And now, most of all, pity of her just because she was woman was the thought first in his soul.  Already he was beginning to pay, and as she had said!

“You don’t answer me,” said he, at length, gently.  “I can imagine your ambitions; but I don’t learn enough of you.”

“No,” said she, with a deep breath.  “As you said, we part, each with secrets untold.  To you, I am of no consequence.  Very well.  I was born, no matter where, but free and equal to yourself, I fancy.  I came here in the pursuit of life and liberty, and of the days of my remaining unhappiness.  I suppose this must be your answer.”

“You speak, at least, as though you had studied life—­and history.”

“I have lived.  And I have seen some history made—­for a cause.  Sir, a great cause.  Men will fight for that again, here, on this soil, not under man-made laws, but under a higher and greater law.  You love my body.  You do not love my mind.  I love them, both.  Yes, I am student of the law.  Humanity!  Is it not larger than we?  Is this narrow, selfish life of yours all you can see—­of life—­of this law?”

“Yes,” said Dunwody, grinning painfully.  “I reckon maybe it was one of those ‘higher law’ abolitionists that shot me!”

“Shot?  What do you mean?” Forgetting philosophy, she turned swiftly.  Yet even as she spoke she now for the first time caught sight of the dark rimmed rent in his trousers leg, noted the uneasy fashion in which he held his weight.

“No one told me you were hurt—­I thought you only tired, or perhaps bruised by some accident—­when you fell, in there.”

“No; shot,” he replied.  “Shot right in here, through the edge of the bone.  When I tripped and fell, there in the hall, I broke the bone short off—­it was only nicked at first.”

“And you have been standing here, talking to me, with that?” She stepped to him swiftly and placed a hand under his arm.  “You must go in.  Come.  Can you walk?”

Through his nerves, racked as they were, there swept a flood of joy, more sweet than that of any drug.  He could see the blown hair about her ears, see the round of her neck, the curve of her body as she bent to aid him, putting her free arm under his, forgetful of everything in her woman’s wish to allay suffering, to brood, to protect, to increase life.  They passed through the door toward the foot of the stairs.  Here she turned to him.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Purchase Price from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.