Dear Roland! The only fault he has is his extreme and palpable selfishness. But what of that? Are not all men so afflicted? Why should he be condemned for what is only to be expected and looked for in the grander sex? What I detest more than anything else is a person who, while professing to be friends with one, only—-
I grow morose, and decline all further conversation, until we come so near our home that but one turn more hides it from our view.
Here Billy remonstrates.
"Of course you can sulk if you like," he says in an injured tone, "and not speak to a fellow, all for nothing; but you can't go into the house with your arm like that, unless you wish them to discover the battle in which you have been engaged."
I hesitate and look ruefully at my arm. The sleeve of my dress is rolled up above the elbow, having refused obstinately to come down over the bandage, and consequently I present a dishevelled, not to say startling appearance.
"I must undo it, I suppose," I return, disinclination in my tone, and Billy says, "Of course," with hideous briskness. Therewith he removes the guarding-pin and proceeds to unfold the handkerchief with an air that savors strongly of pleasurable curiosity, while I stand shrinking beside him, and vowing mentally never again to trust myself at an undue distance from mother earth.
At length the last fold is undone, and, to my unspeakable relief, I see that the wound, though crimson round the edges, has ceased to bleed. Hastily and carefully drawing the sleeve of my dress over it, I thrust the stained handkerchief into my pocket and make for the house.
When I have exchanged a word or two with Dora (who is always in the way when not wanted—that being the hall at the present moment), I escape upstairs without being taken to task for my damaged garments, and carefully lock my door. Nevertheless, though now, comparatively speaking, in safety, there is still a weight upon my mind. If to-morrow I am to return the handkerchief to its owner, it must in the meantime be washed, and who is to wash it?
Try as I will, I cannot bring myself to make a confidante of Martha: therefore nothing remains for me but to undertake the purifying of it myself. I have still half an hour clear before the dinner-bell will ring: so, plunging my landlord's cambric into the basin, I boldly commence my work. Five minutes later. I am getting on: it really begins to look almost white again; the stains have nearly vanished, and only a general pinkiness remains. But what is to be done with the water?—if left, it will surely betray me, and betrayal means punishment.
I begin to feel like a murderess. In every murder case I have ever read (and they have a particular fascination for me), the miserable perpetrator of the crime finds a terrible difficulty in getting rid of the water in which he has washed off the traces of his victim's blood. I now find a similar difficulty in disposing of the water reddened by my own. I open the window, look carefully out, and, seeing no one, fling the contents of my basin into the air. "It falls to earth I know not where," as I hurriedly draw in my head and get through the remainder of my self-imposed duty.