"You loved the son of these rich people the girl told me about? She says you didn't love him, but she's wrong—isn't she?"
"She's wrong. She knows about things I've done, but nothing about what I think or feel. I did love Jim Beckett, Doctor Paul. You don't mind being called by the old name? I've learned how it hurts to love."
"That will do you no harm, Mary. I can speak with you about such things now, for the spirit of a dead woman stands between us. I didn't love her when she was alive. But if I hadn't married her and brought her to France she'd be living now. She died through me—and for me. I think of her with immense tenderness and—a kind of loyalty; a fierce loyalty. I don't know if you understand."
"Indeed I do! I almost envy her that brave death."
"We won't talk of her any more now," Herter said with a sigh. "I've a feeling she wouldn't like us to discuss her, together. She used to be—jealous of you, poor girl! There are other things I wanted to say. The first—but you've guessed it already!—is this: the minute I looked into your face, there in the hospice, I forgave you the pain you made me suffer. In the first shock of meeting your eyes, I didn't realize that I'd forgiven. It wasn't till I'd slammed the door that I knew."
I didn't repeat that I had not purposely done anything which needed forgiveness. I only looked at him with all the kindness and pity in my heart, and waited until he should go on.
"The second thing I wanted to say is, that just the one look told me you weren't happy and gay as you used to be. When I'd shut the door, I could still see you clearly, as if I had the power to look through the wood. I said to myself, that girl's eyes have got the sadness of the whole world in them. They seem as if they were begging for help, and didn't know where on earth it was coming from. Was that a true impression? I waited to ask you this, even more than to see you again."
"It is true," I confessed. "There's only this difference between my feelings and your impression of them. I know there's no help on earth for me. Such help as there is, I get from another place. Do you remember how I used to talk about the dear Padre who was our guardian—my brother's and mine—and how I told him nearly everything good and bad that I thought or did? Well, he went to the front as a chaplain and he has been killed. But I go on writing him letters, exactly as if he could give me advice and comfort, or scold me in the old way."
"What about your brother? The girl—Miss O'Farrell she called herself, I think—said he was with you on this journey. And to-day I recognized him at Sœur Julie's, from his likeness to you. I shouldn't have guessed he was blind. He has a beautiful face. Do you get no comfort from him?"
"Much comfort from his presence and love," I said. "But I try to keep him happy. I don't bother him with my troubles. I won't even let him talk of them. They're taboo."