The year had brought many bitter days, but she had bravely met each crisis. She had hoped to maintain her membership in the Pilgrim Church, and with humility2 and earnestness returned to her duties. The new pastor3 had given her a hearty4 greeting, but the task was beyond her strength. She found that she no longer held her former social position—in fact, that she had no social status. The best people of the church were coolly polite and clumsily sympathetic. She preferred their coolness. The poorer people were frankly5 afraid of her. The innocent victim of a tragedy, the world held that she was somehow to blame—perhaps was equally guilty with the man. She suddenly found herself outside the pale of polite society.
She was stunned6 at first by this brutal7 attitude of the world. To women of weaker character such a blow had often proved fatal in this defenseless hour. To her it was a stimulus8 to higher things. She fled to the solitude9 of her home and found refuge in the laughter of her children. She cried an hour or two over it, and then swept the thought from her heart, lifted up her proud little head and moved on the even tenor10 of her way.
But greater troubles awaited. She had no business training and met with misfortune in the management of her property.
Morris King had been her attorney, since she first came to New York, in the management of a small trust estate. He had always refused any fee, and she had accepted this mark of his faithfulness to their youthful romance simply and graciously. Secure in Gordon’s love, she had long since ceased to consider the existence of any other man as a being capable of love. Marriage had engulfed11 her whole being and life, past, present, future.
But the tender light in King’s eyes when he called to see her on her arrival from the South was unmistakable.
She was startled and annoyed, curtly12 dismissed him as her attorney and undertook the management of her own business affairs.
Within six months she had invested her estate in stocks that had ceased to pay an income and were daily depreciating13.
When her support failed, she advertised for pupils to teach in her home, obtained two scholars, and they were from parents whose ability to pay was a matter of doubt. But she had bravely begun and hoped to succeed.
When King saw her pathetic little advertisement he threw aside his pride and called promptly14 to see her.
He was a muscular young bachelor of thirty-seven. A heavy shock of black hair covered his head, and his upper lip was adorned15 by a handsome black moustache.
He was a leader of the Tammany Democracy, a member of a firm of lawyers, and had served one term in Congress.
He had made himself famous in a speech in the National Convention in which he had attacked the reform element of his own party seeking admission with such violence, such insolent16 and fierce invective17, he had captured the imagination of his party in New York. He was slated18 as the machine candidate for Governor of the Empire State and was almost certain of election. Visions of the White House, ghosts which ever haunt the Executive Mansion19 at Albany, were already keeping him awake at night.
He was a man of strong will, of boundless20 personal ambitions, and in politics he was regarded as the most astute21, powerful and unscrupulous leader in the state. His personal habits were simple and clean to the point of aceticism. His political enemies declared in disgust that he had no redeeming22 vices23. He was a teetotaler, and yet the champion of the saloon and the idol24 of the saloon-keepers’ association. He did not smoke or gamble, and was never known to call on a woman except as a business duty.
In his profession he was honest, dignified25, purposeful and successful. He had landed in New York fourteen years before with ten cents in his pocket, and his income now was never less than twenty thousand dollars a year. He had received a single fee of fifty thousand dollars in a celebrated26 case.
Before coming to New York he was a poor young lawyer in the village of Hampton, Virginia, just admitted to the bar. But the law did not seriously disturb his mind. His real occupation was making love to Ruth Spottswood, who lived across the street in a quaint27 old Colonial cottage. If any client ever attempted to get into his office, it was more than he knew. He was too busy with Ruth to allow other people’s troubles to interfere28 with the work of his life.
He had taken her to the ball at the Hygeia the night she met Gordon, little dreaming that this long-legged Yankee parson from the West, who did not even know how to dance, would hang around the edges of the ballroom29 and take her from him. They were engaged after the child fashion of Southern girls and boys—always with the tacit understanding that if they saw anybody they liked better it could be broken at an hour’s notice.
The next day when he called Ruth said with a laugh:
“Well, Morris, our engagement ends at three o’clock this afternoon. A handsomer man is going to call. You must clear out and attend to your business.”
“Oh, hang the law, Ruth. I’ll sit out under the trees and write you a poem till this Yankee goes.”
“No, I don’t propose to be handicapped. We are not engaged any more, and you can’t come till I tell you.”
He put up a brave fight, selling his law books to buy candy and pay the livery bill for buggy rides, but it was all in vain.
At last, when she told him she was going to marry Gordon and the day had been fixed30, he turned pale, looked at her long and tenderly and stammered31:
“I hope you will be very happy, Ruth. But you’ve killed me.”
“Don’t be silly,” she cried. “Go to work and be a great man.”
He closed his law office and went over to Norfolk, debating the question of suicide or murder. He walked along the river-front to pick out a place to jump overboard, but the water looked too black and filthy32 and cold. He saw a steamer loading, boarded her, and landed in New York with ten cents in his pocket and not a friend on earth that he knew.
He had never spoken a word of love to a woman since. Ambition was his god, and yet, mingled34 with its fierce cult35, its conflicts and turmoil36, he had cherished a boyish loyalty37 to Ruth’s last words as she dismissed him.
“Be a great man,” she had said. He would—and he had dreamed that some day, perhaps, he might say to her: “Behold, I am your knight38 of youthful chivalry39. Your command has been my law. It is all yours.”
The day she had curtly dismissed him as her attorney he was elated with the first assurance his associates had given him that he would be the next Governor of New York. Her unexpected rebuff had cut his pride to the quick. The old hurt was bruised40 again, and by a woman who had been deserted41 by a cavalier husband. He had sworn in the wrath42 of a strong man he would go this time and never return. And now he was hurrying back to her side and cursing himself for being a fool.
She greeted him cordially.
“I’m glad to see you, Morris,” she frankly said—she had always called him by his first name. “I’ve gotten into deep waters since I sent you away so foolishly. I would have sent for you, but I was afraid you were angry and would not come. I’ve had about as many humiliations as I can bear for awhile.”
He looked at her reproachfully.
“You did treat me shamefully43, Ruth, after years of faithful service. I don’t know why. I might guess if I tried. When I saw that pitiful card this morning, I knew what it meant. So I’ve come back to take charge of your business. And you can’t run me away with a stick. I am going to look after your property and make it earn you a living.”
“It is very good of you, and I am grateful,” she replied, gently.
“How much are your stocks worth?”
“About forty thousand dollars, I’m told. But I can’t sell them. They are not listed on the Exchange.”
“I’ll sell them for you, and by the end of the week have your money paying you an income of two hundred dollars a month. Send those two children home. You were not made for a school-teacher.”
He looked at her with intensity44, and she lowered her eyes in embarrassment45.
He sprang to his feet and walked swiftly to the window, and then came back and sat down beside her.
“Ruth,” he said, impulsively46, “it’s no use in my trying to lie to you. We might as well understand one another at once. Of course, I know why you sent me away.”
“Please, Morris, don’t say any more,” she pleaded.
“Yes, I will,” he cried. “I love you. How could I keep you from seeing it in my eyes, when you were free at last, and I knew you might be mine?”
“You must not say this to me!” she protested.
He scowled47 and pursed his lips.
“I will. I am coming to this house when I please. I am going to give you the protection of my life. Every dollar I have, every moment of my time shall be yours if you need it. Ah, Ruth, how I have loved you through the desolate48 years since you sent me away! Men have called me cold and selfish and ambitious, when I was lying awake at night eating my heart out dreaming of you. Every hour of work, every step I’ve climbed in the struggle of life, was with your face smiling on me from the past. All my hopes and ambitions I owe to you. The last message you spoke33 to me has been my guiding star. And when this man threw you from him as a cast-off garment—you, the beautiful queen of my soul—I would have killed him but for the fierce joy that now I could win you!”
She shook her head and a look of pain overspread her face.
“I know what you will say,” he went on rapidly. “You need not protest. I will be patient. I will wait, but I will win you. I’ve sworn it by every oath that can bind49 the soul. I have no other purpose in life. I’m going to be the Governor of New York simply because I’m going to lift you from the shame this man has heaped upon you and make you the mistress of the Governor’s mansion of this mighty50 state. Washington is but one step from Albany. My dream is for you. I will be to you the soul of deference51 and of tender honour. Your slightest wish will be my law, I will be silent if you command. But you cannot keep me away. If you leave me, I will follow you to the ends of the earth.”
Ruth was softly crying.
“You must not cry, my love. I will make your life glorious, and light every shadow with the tenderness of a strong man’s worship.”
“And you love me like this when another has robbed my soul and body of their treasures and cast me aside?” she asked, wistfully.
His mouth suddenly tightened52 and his eyes flashed.
“Yes, and I’d love you so if you were broken and every trace of beauty gone. My love would be so warm and tender and true it would bring back the light into your eyes, the roses to your cheeks, and life even to your dead soul.”
“How strange the ways of God!” she exclaimed, through her tears.
He looked at her with yearning53 tenderness.
“But you are not old or broken, Ruth. You have grown more beautiful. This great sorrow has smoothed from your face every line of fretfulness and worry, and lighted it with the mystery and pathos54 of an unearthly beauty. It shines from your heroic soul until your whole being has come into harmony with it. I loved you in the past; I worship you now.”
She turned on him a look of gratitude55.
“Worry and jealousy56 did exhaust me. I am glad you see in my face and form the change reflected from within. It is very sweet to me, this flattery you pour on my broken heart. I thank you, Morris. You have restored my self-respect and given me strength. It is an honour to receive such love from an honest man. You must not think ill of me if I tell you I cannot love you.”
“I’ll make you!” he cried, fiercely. “You cannot cling to the memory of a man so base and false.”
“He is my husband. I love him.”
King flushed with anger.
“He is not your husband. He has deserted you, lured57 by the beauty of another woman.”
A gleam of fire flashed from her eyes, melting into a soft light.
“Yes, I know, marriage is an ideal, the noblest, most beautiful. We have not yet attained59 its purity in life. Man is only struggling toward its perfection. We will not attain58 it by lowering the ideal, but by lifting up those who are struggling toward it. Another marriage while Frank lives would be possible for me only when I ceased to feel the meaning of sin and shame. I will never regret my life. I have cast all bitterness out of my heart. Better the happiness and pain of a glorious love than never to have known its joy. I have lived.”
“And I will yet teach you to live more deeply,” he firmly said.
She shook her head and looked at him sadly out of her dark eyes from which the storm had cleared at last. They beamed now with the steady light of a deep spiritual tenderness.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
serenely
|
|
| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
humility
|
|
| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
pastor
|
|
| n.牧师，牧人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
hearty
|
|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
stunned
|
|
| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
brutal
|
|
| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
stimulus
|
|
| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
tenor
|
|
| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
engulfed
|
|
| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
curtly
|
|
| adv.简短地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
depreciating
|
|
| v.贬值，跌价，减价( depreciate的现在分词 )；贬低，蔑视，轻视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
adorned
|
|
| [计]被修饰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
insolent
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
invective
|
|
| n.痛骂，恶意抨击 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
slated
|
|
| 用石板瓦盖( slate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
mansion
|
|
| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
boundless
|
|
| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
astute
|
|
| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
redeeming
|
|
| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
vices
|
|
| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
idol
|
|
| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
dignified
|
|
| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
celebrated
|
|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
quaint
|
|
| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
interfere
|
|
| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
ballroom
|
|
| n.舞厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
stammered
|
|
| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
filthy
|
|
| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
cult
|
|
| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
turmoil
|
|
| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
loyalty
|
|
| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
knight
|
|
| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
chivalry
|
|
| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
bruised
|
|
| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
shamefully
|
|
| 可耻地； 丢脸地； 不体面地； 羞耻地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
intensity
|
|
| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
embarrassment
|
|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
impulsively
|
|
| adv.冲动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
scowled
|
|
| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
desolate
|
|
| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
bind
|
|
| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
deference
|
|
| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
tightened
|
|
| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
yearning
|
|
| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
pathos
|
|
| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
gratitude
|
|
| adj.感激，感谢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
lured
|
|
| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |