She soon lifted her eyes above the tree and her lips
moved in earnest prayer as ever came from a human heart. She was
facing the sorest temptation of her life, for she had only to be
silent now, she believed, and the success of her efforts to win
him from Jennie Burton would be complete. If left to himself in
this wild, distracted mood he would indeed break every tie that
bound him to her rival; but after time had blunted his poignant
self-condemnation he would inevitably come back to her. The
conscience whispered: "Who forgave you here? What did you promise
here? What does that tree mean with its branches reaching out
towards heaven? What would you think of Jennie Burton were she
trying to win him from you?"
"O Friend of the weak! be though my strength in this moment of
desperate need," she sighed.
Van Berg watched her with increasing wonder, and his heart beat
thick and fast as she at last turned to him with an expression such
as he never had seen before on a human face. Was it the autumn
sunlight that illumined her features? He learned eventually that
it was the spiritual radiance of the noblest self-sacrifice of
which a woman is capable.
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