"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up
all I had ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a
master man away there in the north, with influence and property and
a great reputation, but none of it had seemed worth having beside
her. I had come to the place, this city of sunny pleasures with
her, and left all those things to wreck and ruin just to save a
remnant at least of my life. While I had been in love with her
before I knew that she had any care for me, before I had imagined
that she would dare--that we should dare, all my life had seemed
vain and hollow, dust and ashes. It was dust and ashes. Night
after night and through the long days I had longed and desired--my
soul had beaten against the thing forbidden!
"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these
things. It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes.
Only while it's there, everything changes, everything. The thing
is I came away and left them in their Crisis to do what they
could."
"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.
"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream,
anyhow--I had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in,
to group themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me
were ready to do things and risk things because of their confidence
in me. I had been playing that game for years, that big laborious
game, that vague, monstrous political game amidst intrigues and
betrayals, speech and agitation.
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