The Air Trust Part 46

"Well?"

"I wish _he_ might have seen them, and have understood! In spite of all he did, and was, he was my father!"

"Yes," answered Gabriel, sensing her grief. "But would you have had him live through this? Live, with the whole world out of his grasp, again?

Live, with all his plans wrecked and broken? Live on in this new time, where he could have comprehended nothing? Live on, in misery and rage and impotence?

"Your father was an old man, Catherine. You know as well as I do--better, perhaps--the whole trend of his life's thought and ambition.

Even if he'd lived, he couldn't have changed, now, at his age. It would have been an utter impossibility. Why say more?"

Catherine made no reply; but in her very att.i.tude of trust and confidence, Gabriel knew he read the comfort he had given her.

Silence, a while. At last she spoke.

"Visions!" she whispered. "Wonderful visions of the glad, new time! How do you see them, Gabriel?"

"How do I see them?" His face seemed to glow with inspiration under the s.h.i.+ning light in the far heavens. "I see them as the realization of a time, now really close at hand, when this old world of ours shall be, as it never yet has been, in truth civilized, emanc.i.p.ated, free. When the night of ignorance, kingcraft, priestcraft, servility and prejudice, bigotry and superst.i.tion shall be forever swept away by the dawn of intelligence and universal education, by scientific truth and light--by understanding and by fearlessness.

"When Science shall no longer be 'the mystery of a cla.s.s,' but shall become the heritage of all mankind. When, because much is known by all, nothing shall be dreaded by any. When all mankind shall be absolutely its own master, strong, and brave, and free!"

"Like you, Gabriel!" the girl exclaimed, from her heart.

"Don't say that!" he disclaimed. "Don't--"

She put her hand over his mouth.

"Shhhh!" she forbade him. "You mustn't argue, now, because your arm's just been set and we don't want any fever. If my dreams include you, too, Gabriel, don't try to tell me I'm mistaken--because I'm not, to begin with, and I _know_ I'm not!"

He laughed, and shook his head.

"Do you realize," said he, "that when it comes to bravery, and strength, and the splendid freedom of an emanc.i.p.ated soul, I must look to _you_ for light and leading?"

"Don't!" she whispered. "Look only to the future--to the newer, better world now coming to birth! The time which is to know no poverty, no crime, no children's blood wrung out for dividends!

"The future when no longer Idleness can enslave Labor to its tasks. When every man who will, may labor freely, whether with hand or brain, and receive the full value of his toil, undiminished by any theft or purloining whatsoever!"

"The future," he continued, as she paused, "when crowns, t.i.tles, swords, rifles and dreadnaughts shall be known only by history. When the earth and the fulness thereof shall belong to all Earth's people; and when its soil need be no longer fertilized with human blood, its crops no longer be brought forth watered by sweat and tears.

"Such have been my visions and my dreams, Catherine--a few of them. Now they are coming true! And other dreams and other visions--dreams of you and visions of our life together--what of them?"

"Why need you ask, Gabriel?" she answered, raising her lips to his.

The sound of singing, a triumphal chorus of the accomplished Revolution, a vast and million-throated song, seemed wafted to them on the wings of night.

And the pure stars, witnessing their love and troth, looked down upon them from the heavens where shone the fire-glow of the Great Emanc.i.p.ation.

THE END.