d, it had been Holgrave's
purpose to let them die in their undeveloped germs. "Why do we delay
so?" asked Phoebe. "This secret takes away my breath! Let us throw
open the doors!"

"In all our lives there can never come another moment like this!" said
Holgrave. "Phoebe, is it all terror?--nothing but terror? Are you
conscious of no joy, as I am, that has made this the only point of life
worth living for?"

"It seems a sin," replied Phoebe, trembling, "to think of joy at such a
time!"

"Could you but know, Phoebe, how it was with me the hour before you
came!" exclaimed the artist. "A dark, cold, miserable hour! The
presence of yonder dead man threw a great black shadow over everything;
he made the universe, so far as my perception could reach, a scene of
guilt and of retribution more dreadful than the guilt. The sense of it
took away my youth. I never hoped to feel young again! The world
looked strange, wild, evil, hostile; my past life, so lonesome and
dreary; my future, a shapeless gloom, which I must mould into gloomy
shapes! But, Phoebe, you crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth, and
joy came in with you! The black moment became at once a blissful one.
It must not pass without the spoken word. I love you!"

"How can you love a simple girl like me?" asked Phoebe, compelled by
his earnestness to speak. "You have many, many thoughts, with which I
should try in vain to sympathize. And I,--I, too,--I have tendencies
with which you would sympathize as little. That is less matter. But I
have not scope enough to make you happy."

"You are my only possibility of happiness!" answered Holgrave. "I have
no faith in it, except as you bestow it on me!"

"And then--I am afraid!" continued Phoebe, shrinking towards Holgrave,
even while she told him so frankly the doubts with which he affected
her. "You will lead me out of my own quiet path. You will make me
strive to follow you where it is pathless. I cannot do so. It is not
my nature. I shall sink down and perish!"

"Ah, Phoebe!" exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh, and a smile that
was burdened with thought.

"It will be far otherwise than as you forebode. The world owes all its
onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines
himself within ancient limits. I have a presentiment that, hereafter,
it will be my lot to set out trees, to make fences,--perhaps, even, in
due time, to build a house for another generation,--in a wo