Americans -- Cuba -- Fiction; Spanish-American War, 1898 -- Fiction
She turned and looked into his eyes ... she rose to her feet and took
one hesitating step toward him ... she stretched out both her hands,
and, somehow, then, she felt his strong arms fold themselves around her
yielding form ... she felt his heart beat very near to hers ... she felt
his lips against her hair ... and, then, she turned her face from his
broad shoulder where it had found a resting-place, and, as her lips met
his, it seemed to her that, after all, she had come home; a feeling of
deep security and sweet peace crept over her:
"Tender Heart," he murmured very near to her small, shell-like ear, for
she had, once more, put her head against his shoulder, "Tender Heart,
you do not know my name.... I am, to you, but one of those five men who
volunteered, at once, to follow Teddy up San Juan Hill.... I am, to you,
but only him you rescued from almost certain death upon that bloody
battle-field. Are you sure you are not making a mistake, sweet, trusting
Tender Heart, to grant me this great privilege, knowing as little of me
as you do?"
He waited for her answer, for some time, but, then, he waited willingly
indeed, for her soft nearness was enough to make him very happy; when
her answer came she spoke in such low tones he had to listen very
closely ... he had to put his arms about her a little closer than they
had been yet ... he had to lift her from the ground and bring her soft,
red mouth upon a level with his head, indeed ... and then, he heard her
say:
"I know you just as well as you know me. We do not know each other's
names ... we do not need to know them ... now ... I only know I love
you, Dear ... and, now, I know that you love me."
And, then, he set her feet upon the ground again and looked down into
her clear, gray eyes, and found within their shining depths the very
things he wanted most to know; and she looked up and saw a man who was a
man indeed ... a man on whom she knew that she could lean ... a man whom
she would love to walk beside ... a man of whom she could be always
proud.
Standing there, they gazed into each other's eyes and read their future
in them ... read the happiness that they might know together on the
earth, and, then, they saw beyond the chance and change that seem to to
govern earthly things, and saw themselves together in some higher,
better sphere. They plainly saw, there, in each other's eyes, the
promise of another, more etherial world, where they might spend long
ages of eternal joy and gladness in each other's company.
Father Felix found them so, for he had followed Ruth to see if he could
help her meet the problems that confronted her; the good Priest
hesitated for only a moment before he said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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