It was all his work. He had sent her away to fit her for
his station in life--to make her fit to marry him. She had risen
above and now HE WAS NOT FIT TO MARRY HER. That was the brutal
truth--a truth that was enough to make a wise man laugh or a fool
weep, and Hale did neither. He simply went on working to make out
how he could best discharge the obligations that he had
voluntarily, willingly, gladly, selfishly even, assumed. In his
mind he treated conditions only as he saw and felt them and
believed them at that moment true: and into the problem he went no
deeper than to find his simple duty, and that, while the morning
stars were sinking, he found. And it was a duty the harder to find
because everything had reawakened within him, and the starting-
point of that awakening was the proud glow in Uncle Billy's kind
old face, when he knew the part he was to play in the happiness of
Hale and June. All the way over the mountain that day his heart
had gathered fuel from memories at the big Pine, and down the
mountain and through the gap, to be set aflame by the yellow
sunlight in the valley and the throbbing life in everything that
was alive, for the month was June and the spirit of that month was
on her way to him.
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