He might have been failing to do it well, but he most
certainly was doing it conscientiously. Once he had said to her that a man
should never be judged by the result of his labors, but by the nature of
his effort. A man might strive with all his heart and strength, yet fail.
Carley watched him striding along and bending down, absorbed in his task,
unmindful of the glaring hot sun, and somehow to her singularly detached
from the life wherein he had once moved and to which she yearned to take
him back. Suddenly an unaccountable flashing query assailed her conscience:
How dare she want to take him back? She seemed as shocked as if some
stranger had accosted her. What was this dimming of her eye, this inward
tremulousness; this dammed tide beating at an unknown and riveted gate of
her intelligence? She felt more then than she dared to face. She struggled
against something in herself. The old habit of mind instinctively resisted
the new, the strange. But she did not come off wholly victorious. The
Carley Burch whom she recognized as of old, passionately hated this life
and work of Glenn Kilbourne's, but the rebel self, an unaccountable and
defiant Carley, loved him all the better for them.
Pages:
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203