Later the impulse could be
carried on and into the lives of the children he had found and brought to
her.
A vision of himself as a truly humble man, kneeling before life, kneeling
before the intricate wonder of life, came to him, but he was again afraid.
When he saw Sue's figure, dressed in white, a dim, pale, flashing thing,
coming down steps toward him, he wanted to run away, to hide himself in
the darkness.
And he wanted also to run toward her, to kneel at her feet, not because
she was Sue but because she was human and like himself filled with human
perplexities.
He did neither of the two things. The boy of Caxton was still alive within
him. With a boyish lift of the head he went boldly to her. "Nothing but
boldness will answer now," he kept saying to himself.
* * * * *
They walked in the gravel path before the house and he tried lamely to
tell his story, the story of his wanderings, of his seeking. When he came
to the tale of the finding of the children she stopped in the path and
stood listening, pale and tense in the half light.
Then she threw back her head and laughed, nervously, half hysterically. "I
have taken them and you, of course," she said, after he had stepped to her
and had put his arm about her waist.
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