“I trust, Madam,” said Gilead gently, “that, in consenting to act as an intermediary in a matter of so delicate a nature, I convey with me your correspondent’s intimation as to the reasons which induced him to the choice of his representative. Let me assure you that I undertake the confidence with the profoundest sympathy with and respect for its nature. He describes me—”
She raised an entreating hand, interrupting him. “He describes you, sir,” she said, in faintly hollow tones, “as his deputy for the truth. O, believe me, I understand fully! I have long dreaded this moment.”
“Madam,” exclaimed Gilead, startled.
She leaned forward, agonised, intense.
“He has discovered it, then,” she said, “and the romance of my life is blighted in its vernal prime. The photograph—”
“I have had the privilege of seeing it,” said Gilead at a loss, observing that she stopped.
To his horror the lady, on that admission, sank back in her seat, sobbing amphorically.
“Deliver your blow, sir, in swiftest mercy,” she said. “Strike and spare not. Return to your principal and denounce the fond impostor, who sought, by an ardent subterfuge, to draw out for yet a little the linked sweetness of a correspondence which had come to form the romance and solace of her loveless days. Your mission is the truth. Speak it unpityingly. Compare for his disenchantment the portrait with the original; say that you found me spare, unattractive if you will, past my first youth; assert, what it is useless to deny, that, with the desperate purpose to retain his admiration, to evoke even a warmer, a more ecstatic communion of soul, I did that, succumbed to a temptation, whose fruits could only realise themselves in dust and vanity. Yes, sir, I confess it; the photograph represents the Cornelia of many years ago; and even if, as some say—Mr Balm! What is it!”
He was stretching up his arms, standing on his toes, in a sort of moral elevation.
“As his photograph represents the Emmanuel of many years ago!” he cried, and came flat down on his soles.