Part 47 (2/2)

”I'm only telling the truth, and there's no harm in that. I 'm telling you what you have n't dared tell yourself.”

”Things I mustn't tell myself!” she cried. ”Things I must n't hear.”

”What I don't understand,” he said, ”is why Covington did n't tell you all this himself. He must have known.”

”He knew nothing,” she broke in. ”I was a mere incident in his life. We met in Paris quite by accident when he happened to have an idle week. He was alone and I was alone, and he saved me from a disagreeable situation.

Then, because he still had nothing in particular to do and I had nothing in particular to do, he suggested this further arrangement. We were each considering nothing but our own comfort. We wanted nothing more. It was to escape just such complications as this--to escape responsibility, as I told you--that we--we married. He was only a boy, Peter, and knew no better. But I was a woman, and should have known. And I came to know!

That was my punishment.”

”He came to know, too,” said Peter.

”He might have come to know,” she corrected breathlessly. ”There were moments when I dared think so. If I had kept myself true--oh, Peter, these are terrible things to say!”

She buried her face in her hands again--a picture of total and abject misery. Her frame shook with sobs that she was fighting hard to suppress.

Peter placed his hand gently upon her shoulder.

”There, little woman,” he tried to comfort. ”Cry a minute. It will do you good.”

”I have n't even the right to cry,” she sobbed.

”You _must_ cry,” he said. ”You have n't let yourself go enough. That's been the whole trouble.”

He was silent a moment, patting her back, with his eyes leveled out of the window as if trying to look beyond the horizon, beyond that to the secret places of eternity.

”You have n't let yourself go enough,” he repeated, almost like a seer.

”You have tried to force your destiny from its appointed course. You have, and Covington has, and I have. We have tried to force things that were not meant to be and to balk things that were meant to be. That's because we've been selfish--all three of us. We've each thought of ourself alone--of our own petty little happiness of the moment. That's deadly. It warps the vision. It--it makes people stone-blind.

”I understand now. When you went away from me, it was myself alone I considered. I was hurt and worried, and made a martyr of myself. If I had thought more of you, all would have been well. This time I think I--I have thought a little more of you. It was to get at you and not myself that I wanted to see again. So I saw again. I let go of myself and reached out for you. So now--why, everything is quite clear.”

She raised her head.

”Clear, Peter?”

”Quite clear. I'm to go back to my work, and to use my eyes less and my head and heart more. I 'm to deal less with statutes and more with people. Instead of quoting precedents, perhaps I 'm going to try to establish precedents. There's work enough to be done, G.o.d knows, of a sort that is born of just such a year as this I 've lived through. I must let go of myself and let myself go. I must think less of my own ambitions and more of the ambitions of others. So I shall live in others. Perhaps I may even be able to live a little through you two.”

”Peter!” she cried.

”For Covington must come back to you as fast as ever he can.”

”No! No! No!”

”You don't understand how much he loves his wife.”

”Please!”

”And, he, poor devil, does n't understand how much his wife loves him.”

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