Arizona -- Fiction; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Fiction; Western stories
Enoch rose reluctantly and put his hands on Diana's shoulders. "Those
lovers, long ago," he said, his deep voice tender and wistful, "those
lovers long ago were not far wrong in their decision. I'm sure, in the
years to come, when I think of this evening, and this journey, I shall
feel so."
Diana touched his cheek softly with her hand. "I love you, Enoch," was
all she said, and they returned in silence to the camp.
"We saw the star fall!" exclaimed Jonas, waiting by the fire with
Na-che.
Enoch nodded and, after a glance at his face, Jonas said nothing more.
All the next day they penetrated deeper and deeper into the mighty
forest. All day long the trail lifted gradually, the air growing rarer
and colder as they went.
It was biting cold when they made their night camp deep in the woods.
But a glorious fire before a giant tree trunk made the last evening on
the trail one of comfort. Na-che and Jonas had run out of excuses for
leaving the lovers alone, but nothing daunted, after supper was cleared
off they made their own camp fire at a distance and sat before it,
singing and laughing even after Diana had withdrawn to her tent.
"Enoch," said Diana, "I have something that I want to say to you, but
I'll admit that it takes more courage than I've been able to gather
together until now. But this is our last evening and I must relieve my
mind."
Enoch, surprised by the earnestness of Diana's voice, laid down his
pipe and put his hand over hers. "I don't see why you need courage to
say anything under heaven to me!"
"But I do on this subject," returned Diana, raising wide, troubled eyes
to his. "Enoch, you have made me love you and then have told me that
you cannot marry me. I think that I have the right to tell you that
you are abnormal toward marriage. You are spoiling our two lives and I
am entering a most solemn protest against your doing so."
"But, Diana--" began Enoch.
"No!" interrupted Diana. "You must hear me through in silence, Enoch.
I remember my father telling me that Seaton believed that you had been
made the victim of almost hypnotic suggestion by that beast, Luigi.
Not that Luigi knew anything about auto-suggestion or anything of the
sort! He simply wanted to enslave a boy who was a clever gambler. And
so he planted the vicious suggestion in your mind that you were
necessarily bad because your mother was. And all these years, that
suggestion has held, not to make you bad but to make you fear that your
children would be or that disease, mental or physical, is latent in you
which marriage would uncover. Enoch, have you never talked your case
over with a psychologist?"
"No!" replied Enoch. "I've always felt that I was perfectly normal and
I still feel so. Moreover, I've wanted to bury my mother's history a
thousand fathoms deep. Consider too, that I've never wanted to marry
any woman till I met you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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