53
THE K I NG ' S BUS I NESS
February, 1935
But had I come to you With the fresh bloom I cannot summon back, I might not know what woinan’s love can be, Not having known all that young love can lack.
doubt that would be to doubt your veracity, and I could never do that. But whether you would ever want to marry me or not is another question. I would not urge you. If it is ‘written in the book / you will do it spontaneously. I f it is not, it is best not. So, whatever the future may hold in regard to events, there is one condition which will stand. “ Until you came to see me that snowy day, I had felt sure that this experience was not for me. A fter one or two ephemeral affairs in my college days, no woman oc cupied any particular place in my thoughts, although of course there have always been many whom I held in high esteem. Then you came, and my heart experienced for the first time the realization o f God’s best human gift. I will not say more. The matter is before you, dear one. It is your responsibility to decide. God grant the way be clear! “ Yours— only and always, “ G. T. F .” Two hours later, by special delivery, went her reply: “ Dearest: “ The marvel to me is that I could have been totally blind for so long. I was asking my Father for a stone and could not see that He was offering me bread! The
For the next few days, Marion walked on air, but it was not the feverish, excited air-walking she had known before; there was calmness and peace through the day and long nights o f dreamless sleep. She knew just how long it would take the mails to bring a reply to her letter. But no reply came on the day she had appointed— or the next. The second day after, there was a telegram, from a San Francisco physician, which said: “ Dr. Fenwick seri ously ill. Operation Thursday in C-------Hospital for brain tumor.” v, Thursday morning, Marion was in the waiting room of the hospital, talking calmly to the grave-faced doctor who had sent the wire. He was a kindly man who in his fif teen years o f practice had not become insensible to the heartache o f those intimately connected with his patients. “ He has a chance/’ he was saying,, “ if we operate, but none if we do not. I wish I could tell you some thing that would be of more comfort to you, but this is all I can honestly say— one chance in perhaps five hun dred. You are a near relative, I believe—his niece?” Marion’s pale, set face relaxed, and a proud light shone from her eyes as she answered, “ No, I am not a relative. I am his fiancee.” “ I am sorry that I didn’t know. I have not known Dr. Fenwick long. Long enough, though, to know he’s every inch a man. I ’m not strong on religion, but he has set me thinking.”
thing that hurts is that I fol lowed a w i l l - o ’ -t h e -w is p all these years, when I might have had the steady, holy brightness o f your love, instead. I do not blame myself altogether, though, for even if I had not been so de luded, I think it would never have occurred to me that a ce lebrity like you could ever want an insignificant being like me in any other position than that which I was already holding. “ I did not need to wait for light at this crossroads; it was there, blazing, the moment I finished your letter. There is only one answer. I love you— not because o f all you have
‘It couldn’t be otherwise,” she said softly. As she rose to go, he said, “ Just keep up your spirits the best you can/ Miss Berkeley. That will help him. I have told the nurse you would be right up to stay with him until he goes to the operating room.” The elevator crawled to the fourth floor. At last her hand was on the knob o f his d o o r . H e r h e a r t b ea t so furiously, and h e r knees seemed so p e r ilo u s ly near to
"Sophia's education has been provided for. You won't have to be concerned about that."
giving way, that she wondered whether she could reach the chair which had been placed by his bed for her. But his smile and voice reassured her, and she found herself bending over him and kissing his lips as gently and naturally as his own mother had done when she had tucked him in bed long years ago. But she could not trust herself to speak. “ You are the one it’s hard on, little girl,” he said as he clasped her slender hand gently in his. “ For me, the outlook is glorious either way. Life down here with you would be more beautiful than it ever has been or ever could be without you. God knows I want it prolonged as never before, for never before have I had such treasure here—a treasure which I so much wanted the privilege of guarding. I realize that it would be infinitely harder for me if our positions were reversed, and for that reason I could wish that you might go first. Sorrow and testing for the one left behind— infinite joy for the one going ahead.” “ But, Dearest, you don’t know that you are going. It may be— ” But she could trust her voice no further. “ Indeed I don’t,” he said reassuringly. “ There must be a chance, or they wouldn’t operate, but knowing, as we do, the chances against it (they haven’t told me much, but I know something about cases o f this kind), and knowing, as we do, the promises o f the life beyond, I see
done for me, not because you are to me the best example o f what God can do with a life completely yielded to Him, and not for a hundred other things, merely, but because God has put into my heart the response to your love, has made you the only man in the world I want to marry— or ever cou ld! “ Yours, only and always, “ Marion.” “ P. S. Here are some verses from Anna Bird Stewart which will tell you what my heart is struggling to say: RECOMPENSE* If I could have my wish today, I would live over all my woman years,
I would come to you from my nun-like room, Without remembrances, nor hopes, nor fears. I f I could have my way, All that I once called love I would forget— Those tawdry feelings o f my thoughtless youth, Tarnished with self, with waste and with regret. I f I could fuse into the gold_ O f my maturer love, that which rang true In all my early dreams, I should not grudge
Those thoughts o f love that were not thought of you. *From Builder of Bridges (McBride). Used by permission of the author.
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