“‘I am not afraid on that score,’ said I. ‘This is my confessional. It is as sacred as any. Am I to receive absolution?’
“She could not fully promise that. She read me a neat little lecture. It was fascinating to thus receive correction at her hands. I pledged myself, when it was done, to follow the course laid out for me. Then I made bold to exchange rôles. With some maidenly hesitation, which soon vanished, she in turn laid before me the inner history of her life. Ah, my boy, how little there was in it to gloss over! how much to humiliate the best and noblest of us men! It was a revelation that made me prostrate myself before her. I was not worthy to hear it.”
George paused, and drummed on the table with his fingers nervously.
“I may as well tell you all,” he resumed. “I had resolved to ask that girl to marry me when we started on our ride, but after what she said to me so simply and modestly, I positively could not do it. She expected me to speak, I know that, for she would not have told me what she did tell me, otherwise.”
“So you didn’t speak? Oh, stupid, stupid boy!”
“I know it. But my tongue was tied. Perhaps it was all cowardice; I can’t say. I never was afraid of any one before. I came home utterly shattered and down-hearted. To-day I gravitated back to her, after a sleepless night. She received me with the same friendly smile as usual, but there seemed to be a slight shadow over her spirits. That little, almost imperceptible change filled me with joy. I jumped to a conclusion that intoxicated me, and made the plunge at once.
“‘It is another case of the moth and the candle,’ I said to her.
“‘Thank you. So I am a candle? That is a fine figure of speech.’
“‘Seriously speaking, I think we had not finished what we were talking of yesterday.’
“‘What were we talking of yesterday?’ she had the effrontery to ask. ‘Oh, yes, now I recollect. It was yourself. That subject, I fear, you will never finish talking of.’