Thyrza's dark eyes looked again earnestly into mine, deepening and dilating with the strength of her own feelings. "Keith did so beg and beseech, before he died, that no difference might be made to Eustace. He said we were never to think of it as Eustace's doing. But—there is a difference. Nobody ever forgets; and nobody ever seems quite to forgive—except—"
"Six years!" I said involuntarily, as she paused.
"Six years and a few weeks! It is a long long while to keep the feeling up. And Eustace meant no harm, Miss Conway. He was just a reckless boy,—in wild spirits. Of course he was wrong to disobey,—very wrong. But still, it wasn't worse that time than fifty other times, I suppose. It does seem such a dreadful punishment to have come upon him."
"I suppose one ought rather to put it the opposite way," I said; "that the fifty other times were really no better than that time."
"Yes—perhaps—but such, a punishment to follow upon that once!" she repeated.
"Hardly upon that once alone," I said. "If he had not disobeyed fifty times before, more or less, he would not have disobeyed then. Don't think me hard upon your brother, Thyrza, for indeed I do feel for him. But I believe we are all a little apt to forget how every single step in life is part of a steady working onward towards some good or some terrible goal. No one deed can be weighed by itself, detached from others."
She gave me a startled glance, and said, "Every single step!"
"It must be," I said. "Everything that we do strengthens either the good or the evil in us; and no one thing done can ever be undone."
Thyrza drew a long breath. "Ah, that is the worst!" she said. After a moment's hesitation she went on, "Eustace has never been the same since. He never speaks of Keith, or of that time. Some don't understand, and think him unfeeling. I have heard him called 'callous.' As if people could not see for themselves!"
"I should have thought it would be enough to compare that photograph with his face now," I said.