Volcanoes reveal the earth's
heart!" returned he, sententiously.
"They're very objectionable things though," suggested Sophie, arching
her eyebrows.
"They make beautiful mountains, whole islands, sometimes; in a man, they
show what stuff is in him. It would be better to commit a deadly crime
than to dribble out a life like that fountain's!"
"Even to speak of sin's bringing forth good, is a fearful and wicked
thing," said Sophie; and, although tears rose to her eyes, her voice was
almost stern. "But you don't know what you say: only think, and you
will shudder at it."
But Bressant was perverse. "I think any thing is better than to be
torpid. I'd rather know I could never hope for happiness hereafter, than
not have blood enough really to hope or despair at all."
"Why do you speak so?" asked Sophie, with a look of pain in her grave
little face. "Do you fear any such torpor in your own life? My love,
this hasn't always been so."
"I feel too much in me to manage, sometimes," said he, leaning forward
on his knees, and working in the sanded path with his foot. "I'm not
accustomed to myself yet: it will come all right, later. My health and
strength, too, so soon after my weakness--they intoxicate me, I think."
Sophie looked at his broad back and dark curly head, and brown, short
beard, as he sat thus beside her, and she grew pale, and sighed, "It
isn't right, dear," said she, shaking her head.
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