I took heart. I plunged into my story. I did not make light of my offence. I did not exaggerate it. I told her the truth, but I spared her details. I was too eager to hear her say that she forgave me to bother now with long and elaborate explanations. I told her that I had come across unexpected clues that had led me so far unerringly toward the hiding-place of the casket. The existence of these new clues had occurred to me, very strangely, in church while I was waiting for her. Just how they had dawned on me, how I had traced them out, I would tell her later. For the present, it was enough that I had found them. I had not met her after the church service because I had yielded to the temptation of putting them to the test. This latter task had taken me all the afternoon. I reminded her that she had urged the great importance of haste in accomplishing this task. Every moment was valuable, if I was to anticipate the duke. Because I had taken her precisely at her word, surely she would not find fault with that? Surely her strong common-sense must help her to understand, even though I had caused her some annoyance, perhaps vexation.
This was my plea. But even as I made it I felt its weakness. The fact remained that I must have wounded her. The fact remained that love is not logic. It is a thing so fragile that, like a sensitive plant exposed to the cold blast, it withers if not guarded tenderly. It withers none the less surely because one’s carelessness may not be deliberate. And I knew that my carelessness in a way had been deliberate. My vehement protestations did not ring true.
She heard me through without speaking. At the end of my story she sighed, and I fancied that for the first time her cheerfulness gave way to pain.
“You forgive me?” I asked humbly.
“Yes,” she answered slowly. “If you can say quite honestly that you feel that there is nothing for me to forgive, I forgive you.”
I was silent.
“It would be unreasonable that I should blame you for doing only too well what I had asked you to do,” she said gently.
“Only too well, Jacqueline?” I repeated anxiously.
“A year ago, Dick, I was at a luncheon given by one of my friends to announce her engagement. There were twelve of us present. The talk at the table drifted to a play that most of us had seen. It was a mediæval play, the hero a knight, who had had a task given him–a difficult, seemingly an impossible task, by the woman whom he professed to love. Some one asked what the man of the twentieth century would do if such a task were given him by the woman he loved. Would he obediently attempt it? Or would he ridicule it? It was a question of character, you see.”
The discussion seemed to me rather silly, but I nodded gravely.