“Godfrey Waynflete.”
Constancy read this letter through with burning cheeks, and feelings in her heart that showed themselves as impatient anger. She quite understood it, and Godfrey stood out before her mental vision, vivid and picturesque with his single aim, and his single heart. But her soul rebelled against the demand on her sympathy. Like all people of strong imagination, she was a moral coward; to enter into the depths of such passionate remorse—such devotion of purpose, was too serious, too absorbing a thing. To realise it, so as to say anything real about it, demanded too much, and she scorned such unreality as she recognised. She knew that an appeal had been made to her, not so much for her love, as for the support of her comprehension. She could not say soft, unmeaning words; she knew what was asked of her much too well. She could have comprehended him and helped him through, but, “I don’t believe in the need of it all!” she said to herself. “He had much better forget all about it, and turn away to something fresh. I don’t want to go down into the depths with him. I want my own soul to myself.”
So she got a little sheet of rough, square paper, and wrote upon it a little note in the individual characteristic hand which was like nobody else’s.
“Dear Mr Waynflete,—
“I was extremely sorry to hear of dear Mrs Waynflete’s death. I never knew any one like her, and she was very kind to me. I can’t think that she would have altered her intentions at the last moment, though I am sure you must be very sorry to have prevented your brother from coming to her sooner. I hope he will soon be quite well again. I never think there is much good in dwelling on things that are over and done with. Do you think anything ever matters quite as much as one thinks it does? I cannot pretend to be so constant to the past. And blaming one’s self only makes one stupid and spoils one’s future chances. All sorts of new things will be sure to happen, and whatever is, is likely to be just as right as anything else.
“Yours truly,—
“Constancy Vyner.”
“There! It would be rather horrid of me not to write,” she thought, as she directed the rough square envelope, “but I couldn’t enter into all those desperate heroics.” Yet all the while she was preaching new things, the image of such a desperate hero was forcing itself on her imagination, a story built itself up in her mind, in which the nobleness of such a single aim, the grandeur of such depth of feeling was shown in clear, strong outline. But in real life the type was too inconvenient.
Perhaps it was in defiance of an uneasy conscience, to prove to herself her own self-satisfaction, that she showed Florella the letter, and described her answer to it.
“Why don’t you speak, Flo?” she said impatiently. “You make my soul wriggle before you. What have I done?”