A thousand times hast thou
Crushed and choked us.
In thy heart-depths
We have lain and waited
Vainly for thy summons....'
That is the true picture of my career."
"Every humble-hearted person with gifts would think that," Katharine said impulsively.
It was as though she were defending him from some accuser; as though she imperiously wished to sweep all regrets and grievings out of his horizon. He felt her tender sympathy enfolding him, and it gave him courage. With one tremendous effort he broke down the wall of reserve. The long-imprisoned thoughts came tumbling out. At first they freed themselves with effort, and then with natural ease. Katharine listened wonder-struck. He spoke of the years which had gone, of Marianne, of her strange attitude to his work, of the battle which he had always been fighting between bitterness and self-reproach, of the inroad which it had made on his powers of thought and concentration, of his contempt for himself that he had not been able to deal more successfully with difficulties which spoilt her life and his.
Katharine, knowing from Knutty something of the daily difficulties which had beset him, was touched by his gentle chivalry of heart and spirit; for he did not say one single ungentle word of Marianne, nor give expression to one single ungenerous criticism. His criticism was of himself, not her. He said repeatedly that if he had cared enough to find the key to a good understanding, it could have been found.
"I can tell you all this so easily now that I have once begun," he said. "I have been longing to lay it all before you; time after time I have tried to speak to you of my poor Marianne, of her death, of the boy's disbelief in me, of my own disbelief in myself, of the secret trouble which has gnawed at my heart, and which, in spite of reason, will gnaw at my heart until I have told it to you. You are the only one in all eternity to whom I could tell it."