The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1910-06-16
III He Rolled the Great Rock Aside.

He Rolled the Great Rock Aside.
I He turned away, sank down on one
Of the great boulders that he had
thrown aside and buried his face in
his hands, his body shaking with emo
tions he could scarce define but well
understood. Fhe woman threw herself
down on her knees before him and
took him once more in her arms.
Man" she said, Il love you!"
She drew his hands away from his
face; she laid her own face in his
bleeding palm and kissed it.
Man." she said, her lips wet with
| his own blood IN a sort of wild, bar
barrie sacrament, man, love you!"
He stared at her as one distraught.
He had dreamed of this, he had imag-
ined it, he had prayed for it, he had
hoped for it, but no revelation that
had come to him in the years of their
| association equaled in its binding
brilliancy, in its intense illumination,
the revelation in that womans voice,
in that woman's eyes, in that woman's
touch.
Man." she said again, Il love you.
| Do you understand! Do you know
what it means?"
Then he found his voice. He took
her hand and pressed it against his
heart.
81 know" he whispered. 81 under
stand here"
He rose to his feet, stopped, caught
her by the shoulders and lifted her to
his level. A piece of rock i'll bal
anced on the edge of the cliff fell
crashing. The place was dangerous.
Without a word he slipped his arm
beneath her lifted her up as he might
have done a child and carried her out
upon the sand away from thes beetling
crags of the rocky wall. She nestled
in his arms with a sense of joy and
satisfaction and helplessness cared for
so exquisite that it was almost pain.
He sat her down presently on the
sand and knelt before her. The sun
light sprang through the gray haze
on the horizons edge and lighted her
face as he peered into it. Suddenly he
threw himself PROSTATE before her
and his lips upon her feet.
mot there" she whispered, laying
her hand upon his bent head, "but
here, here in my arms, upon my heart,
for Man, Man, l love you!"
Then kneeling by her side he took
her once more within his arms.
"But you have not said" she began
at last, that you loved me-"
There is no word" he said, softly,
"in that speech that you have taught
me which is equal to what feel. You
don't know how | have looked upon
| you and longed for you ever since you
made me know and feei that | was a
man with a mans soul. Night after
night have watched you as you went
to your nook in the rocks. But that
you have taught me honor and consid-
GRAFTON, what it is to be gentleman.
had followed you and caught you in
the dark within my arms"
She laid her hand upon his breast
and looked at him feelingly, entreet-
ingly, with touching consciousness of
his strength and her weakness.
"What I have taught you," she
asked you will not forget?"
"Neyer! Never!"
He released her waist and took her
hand and kissed it. There was as
much passion in the pressure of his
lips upon her hand as there was in
the beat of his heart against her own
she felt.
you" he continued, will say what
is to be done"
"Not l." she answered, piteously
"but you. have no strength vher
you are by. Since that moment wher
you kissed me, you are the master ant
the man, but you will respect me IL
my helplessness"
"As if you we're God I'M heaven,
cried the man, raising his hand as one
who makes VOW. "You are to me
everything that is pure, that is holy
that is lovely"
mo! MOI" she whispered, look o
terror coming into her face.
"Yes," he said. Through you
know God, through you know woman
You are sacred to me. Meier again
unless you give me leave, VIII l pres
my lips to yours; never again, unless
you say l may, will take you In m!
arms; never again will even toucl