Part 5 (1/2)
She rose and took a step either way. She gazed on him, and suddenly she broke down and cried, her hands to her face.
”O G.o.d,” she sobbed, ”when will all this be over? When will we get rid of this tragedy? I can't stand it longer.”
He rose, too, confused.
”Listen,” he whispered. ”I swear to you, I swear, that from this day on my life belongs to those”--his voice broke--”dead girls ... to the toilers....”
She impulsively reached out a hand, and he seized it. Then, when she became more quiet, she murmured:
”I can see you mean it. Oh, this is wonderful! It is a miracle springing out of the fire!”
There was a strange throbbing silence that brought them close together.
And Sally, glancing at him again, whispered:
”I can see how you have suffered! Let me help you ... all that I can!”
He spoke in great pain.
”What can I do? I know so little.”
”Do? You must learn that for yourself. You must fit in where you belong.
Do you know anything of the working-cla.s.s movement?”
”No,” he said.
”Then I will make a list of books and magazines for you.”
She sat down and wrote a list on a slip, and arose and handed it to him.
She was gazing at him again, gazing at the tragic face. Then she whispered:
”I believe in you.... Is there anything else?”
And again she reached out her hand and he clasped it. Her fine faith smote something hard in him, shriveled it like fire, and all at once, miraculously, divinely, a little liquid gush of lovely joy, of wonderful beat.i.tude began to rise from his heart, to rise and overflow and fill him. He was being cleansed, he had expiated his guilt by confessing it to his accuser and receiving her strange and gentle forgiveness; tears came to his eyes, came and paused on the lashes and trickled down. He gulped a sob.
”I can go on now,” he said.
She looked at him, wondering.
”You can!” she whispered.
And he went out, a free man again, at the beginning of a new life.
IV
GOLDEN OCTOBER