So Glenn Kilbourne loomed heroically in Carley's transfigured sight. He was
one of Carley's battle-scarred warriors. Out of his travail he had climbed
on stepping-stones of his dead self. Resurgam! That had been his
unquenchable cry. Who had heard it? Only the solitude of his lonely canyon,
only the waiting, dreaming, watching walls, only the silent midnight
shadows, only the white, blinking, passionless stars, only the wild
creatures of his haunts, only the moaning wind in the pines--only these had
been with him in his agony. How near were these things to God?
Carley's heart seemed full to bursting. Not another single moment could her
mounting love abide in a heart that held a double purpose. How bitter the
assurance that she had not come West to help him! It was self, self, all
self that had actuated her. Unworthy indeed was she of the love of this
man. Only a lifetime of devotion to him could acquit her in the eyes of her
better self. Sweetly and madly raced the thrill and tumult of her blood.
There must be only one outcome to her romance. Yet the next instant there
came a dull throbbing--an oppression which was pain--an impondering vague
thought of catastrophe. Only the fearfulness of love perhaps!
She saw him complete his task and wipe his brown moist face and stride
toward her, coming nearer, tall and erect with something added to his
soldierly bearing, with a light in his eyes she could no longer bear.
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