“Yes, Jo.”
“I might have been a credit to you instead of a disgrace had I acted differently,” he said, turning on his side to look at me. “When you were reading just now I thought of the afternoon in Fairview when we went out to the hayloft to talk of our future, after it was announced that I was to go to Damon Barker’s to live, and I thought that while we have turned out very much as we hoped we should, you were brave and patient in your sorrow, while I was utterly cast down by mine and ruined. Do you forgive me for that?”
“Yes, Jo; everything. I love you so much that I cannot think of your faults.”
He turned on his back again, and remained quiet so long that I, too, thought of the Sunday afternoon in Fairview, and of what he had said. Jo was evidently thinking of the same thing, for at last he continued:—
“I remember of your mother saying to me once that she believed you and I would grow up into brave and honorable men; men who would love their wives and children instead of treating them as they were treated in Fairview, and I feel very guilty now that I realize that she was mistaken in her opinion of me. It would have been genuine bravery had I conquered my horror of the letter, my hate for Clinton Bragg, and made Mateel love me in spite of everything; but I did not know what the word meant then, though I do now, and your mother probably meant something like that. My boyhood was so wretched that I expected relief from wretchedness when I was married, but perhaps I should have known that unhappiness attends every condition in life, and that bravery and nobility consists in forgiving and forgetting, together with gentleness and capacity. My life has been one long mistake; I should think you would find it hard to forgive that, after expecting so much of me.”
“No, Jo; not at all hard. If you are entitled to charity from me, I gave it without knowing it, for I only think of you to regret that a man so worthy has been so unfortunate. I never reproached you in my life.”
“Although I believe you forgive me fully,” he continued, “I cannot forgive myself, though I confess my weakness, and say that I always did the best I could. I conquered everything except shame over the contents of the letter and hate at the sight of Bragg. These dragged me down as discontent dragged John Westlock down; perhaps any man could be ruined if attacked at the right place.”
Wiser men than you, Jo, are of that opinion, and I regarded it as the most eloquent defence he had ever made. Those who believe in their own strength have great charity for themselves and none at all for others, but those of us who are more candid, and learned in the world’s affairs, acknowledge our own weakness in admitting the weakness of others.
“I am satisfied now that I made a mistake in thinking of love as it should be, not as it really is, and I unwisely built on that foundation, but I blame no one for it; a man who is ignorant should submit to the penalties without complaint. But I shall always think that I should have been very contented had it turned out as I expected; I shall always justify myself with the belief that had Mateel brought as much enthusiasm into our marriage contract as I did, we should have been of great use to each other. I hope you will not think hard of me if I say that she had the experience which I should have had, while I had the innocence and faith in marriage which a wife should possess.”
He had little to say after that, and tossed about uneasily in his bed after I put out the light, which was unusual, for I had frequently remarked with surprise that he slept well in the jail, and seemed greatly refreshed by it. Perhaps he had never permitted himself to think of his wife until that evening since he had struggled with Bragg in the woods, and the indiscretion had brought on his old trouble, for if I dozed off, and wakened again, I found him pacing up and down the floor, as he had done so many nights in the house at the mill when he lived alone in it. As I watched him I tried to compute the number of weary miles he had travelled in this manner since the separation; up and down, from the right to the left, carrying his aching and troubled head, which refused him peace night and day; thinking, thinking, thinking; up and down from the right to the left; so the long road was travelled, growing more painful and difficult every day. I followed the road he had been travelling to where it ended and encountered a jail, in which Jo Erring’s hope and ambition, the pride and comfort of my boyhood, were locked up, with my old friend, changed but little, pacing wearily up and down to see that there was no escape. Oh, Jo, my dearest friend, is there nothing I can do to lighten your sorrow? Must I watch you travelling a road which grows more suggestive of the damp of graves with every day’s journey without putting out a hand to help you? Will you continue to put me off with no other reply than tears when I offer to help you until we enter the churchyard together, and I come out alone?