Conclusive seemed Her argument to Ruth and stanched her tears. She gently disengaged the fond embrace That held her to her husband's heart, and, drawn A little backward from his face her face, She smiled on him like sunshine after rain. Smiling pathetically back, he kissed, With kisses that she felt like sacraments, Then, and forever after till she died, His wife's brow beautiful with hope, and said: "Ruth, thou hast said; it is, be sure, his guile, Satan's, whereby I presently shall die; If so to die indeed be mine, who feel Too young still, and too strong, too full of hope, Too full of--shall I name it, Ruth?--too full Of God Himself, the Holy Ghost, to die! For He within me lives such life and power, Death seems impossible, all weakness seems Far off, an alien thing, and not for me; I am immortal and omnipotent. That, Ruth, is when I stand to speak for God, Preaching to men the gospel of His Son. "But when, as now, I sit with thee and talk, Or when my children cluster round my knees, And I hear husband, father, from fond lips Pressed to these lips so oft, and with such joy, When all the dearness that is meant by home, And all the drawing lodged in kindred blood, And all that sense, unutterably deep, Of oneness, soul in soul, with those we love-- O Ruth!--but, Ruth, our tears commingled flow, 'Tis our hearts flow together in those tears! O wife and life, when all that I have said, And that far more which never tongue could say, Surges upon me, surge on surge of thought And feeling, like an overflowing flood, Belovéd, then, how weak I am, how frail, How low and like to die! I lean toward thee, As if the oak should lean upon his vine." Ruth took his word from him and made reply: "So lean on me, my love, and be at rest; Lean, and make proof how vines at need are strong. In me no faltering purpose weakens will. Thou speakest of flesh within thee crying out To flesh against the spirit--warfare strange Of elements that dwell in me at one. My nature moves straightforward all one way. Rebellion none, no mutiny, I find Only resolve to thwart thy mad resolve, Thy half resolve, say rather, half and mad-- So proved by these compunctious visitings Thou hast, these gracious sweet remorses wise, Relentings toward thy children and toward me; Divine presages, Stephen, scorn them not, Sent to forewarn thee ere it be too late!