CHAPTER XIX
In such a manner, happiness was born of turmoil.
Helen Foraker had taken young Taylor into her hands and unconsciously moulded him into the man she would have; he had grown, he had changed, and though he had yet to prove his mettle, he bore rich promise. And when he came in her darkest hour and pledged his strength in her cause she found that she needed the things a man so moulded, could give. Not his help, first, but his love, his trust, the sanctuary of his arms.
But Taylor held that secret which he dared not tell the girl and even that night while the glory of her yielded lips was still fever in his blood he felt the mounting of apprehension, much like the misgiving which had been born that night in Florida when his father made his gift of logs, when Philip Rowe had smirked. He went to sleep, memory of her hands about his neck mingling with his father's face leering at his efforts to protect the forest from a destroying force.
"I felt so secure last night," she told him in the early day. "I felt that Jim Harris—no one, can hurt me now. I told you once that there were impulses in my heart that never had a chance to grow. This one, John, is the strongest of them; it has been held back more than any other; repression gave it strength. Its breaking free was so sudden, so overwhelming—I didn't dare stay—last night."
She put her face against his shoulder.
There had been no restraint, no shyness in her greeting
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