“I trusted Neil, for as you know, he was under great obligations——”
“Obligations! Obligations! That is a terrible word. Love should not know it.”
“If I had never met Neil——”
“You only meet the people in this life, whom you were meant to meet. Our destiny is human, it must come to us by human hearts and hands. Marriage 348 brings out the best and the worst a man or woman has. Let your marriage, Roberta, teach you the height and the depth of a woman’s love. There are faults only a woman can forgive, and go on trusting and loving. Try and reach that height and depth of love. Then you can go boldly to God and say, ‘Forgive me my trespasses, as I have forgiven those who trespassed against me.’ What do you want me to do for you?”
“I want you, dear Doctor, to go and take the very earliest passage to New York that you can get. Any steamer and any line will do. Also I want you to go to the bank of Scotland, and tell them to transmit all my cash in their keeping to the bank of New York. Also, there is a trunk at Madame Bonelle’s I want placed on the steamer, as soon as my passage is taken. It has a carefully chosen wardrobe in it. Brina thought it was full of dresses to be altered, according to American styles”—and this explanation of the dress episode she gave to Christine with a smile so comically illuminating, that the Doctor’s smile perforce caught a gleam from it.
But he was in an authoritative mood, and he said, “What is your intention, Mrs. Ruleson? This is a singular order for you to give.”
“Doctor, I am going to my husband. Christine has told me where he is. He loves me yet, and I want to go, and help, and comfort him.”
“That is right. It is converting love into action. If this is not done, love is indolent and unbelieving. 349 It is not enough for Neil to love you, your love must flow out to him in return, or your married life will be barren as sand.”
“I shall forgive him everything. He is longing to explain all to me.”
“Forgive him before he explains. Have no explanations, they turn to arguments, and an argument is a more hopeless barrier than a vigorous quarrel, or an indignant contradiction. You do not want to judge whether he is right or wrong. The more you judge, the less you love. Take him just as he is, and begin your lives over again. Will you do this?”