FullReads

“I have been as a child, and not as a man,” he said gravely. “Shall I ever again be a man, as I once was, Samantha?”

“You cannot see yourself,” she said. “A week ago you fell ill, and since then you have been pale and worn; but your body has been, and is, that of a great strong man. In the morning I will take you to a spring in the hills, and you shall see yourself, beloved.”

He stood up, stretched himself, went to the door, and looked out into the valley flooded with moonlight. He drew in a great draught of air, and said: “The world–the great, wonderful world, where men live, and love work, and do strong things!”–he paused, and turned with a trouble in his face. “My wife,” he said, “you have lived with a dead man twelve years, and I have lost twelve years in the world. I had a great thought once–an invention–but now–” he hung his head bitterly. She came to him, and her hands slid up along his breast to his shoulders, and rested there; and she said, with a glad smile: “Francis, you have lost nothing. The thing–the invention–was all but finished when you fell ill a week ago. We have worked at it for these twelve years; through it, I think, you have been brought back to me. Come, there is a little work yet to, do upon it;” and she drew him to where a machine of iron lay in the corner. With a great cry he fell upon his knees beside it, and fondled it.

Then, presently, he rose, and caught his wife to his breast.

Together, a moment later, they stood beside the anvil. The wolf-dog fled out into the night from the shower of sparks, as, in the red light, the two sang to the clanging of the hammers:

“When God was making the world
(Swift is the wind and white is the fire)”