“Don’t!” she whispered.  “Look only to the future—­to the newer, better world now coming to birth!  The time which is to know no poverty, no crime, no children’s blood wrung out for dividends!

“The future when no longer Idleness can enslave Labor to its tasks.  When every man who will, may labor freely, whether with hand or brain, and receive the full value of his toil, undiminished by any theft or purloining whatsoever!”

“The future,” he continued, as she paused, “when crowns, titles, swords, rifles and dreadnaughts shall be known only by history.  When the earth and the fulness thereof shall belong to all Earth’s people; and when its soil need be no longer fertilized with human blood, its crops no longer be brought forth watered by sweat and tears.

“Such have been my visions and my dreams, Catherine—­a few of them.  Now they are coming true!  And other dreams and other visions—­dreams of you and visions of our life together—­what of them?”

“Why need you ask, Gabriel?” she answered, raising her lips to his.

The sound of singing, a triumphal chorus of the accomplished Revolution, a vast and million-throated song, seemed wafted to them on the wings of night.

And the pure stars, witnessing their love and troth, looked down upon them from the heavens where shone the fire-glow of the Great Emancipation.

THE END.

[Transcriber’s note:  In the following paragraph, I corrected the second “Flint” to “Waldron”: 

“Very likely,” answered Flint, who had now at last entirely recovered his sang-froid.  “But in that event, our work would be at a standstill.  No, Flint, we mustn’t oppose this fellow.  Better let the check go through, if he has nerve enough to fill it out and cash it.  He won’t dare gouge very deep; and no matter what he takes, it won’t be a drop in the ocean, compared to the golden flood now almost within our grasp!”]