A Day of Fate

by Edward Payson Roe

"Well," I said dejectedly, "what can I do? It seems that I have played the hypocrite all the week in vain. I will do whatever you ask."

"I was in hopes that as you grew well and strong you would throw off this folly. Have you not enough manhood to overcome it?"

"No, Miss Warren," I said bluntly, "I have not. What little manhood I had led to this very thing."

"Such—such—"

"Enthrallment, you may call it."

"No, I will not; it's a degrading word. I would not have a slave if I could."

"Since I can't help it, I don't see how you can. I may have been a poor actor, but I know I've not been obtrusive."

"You have not indeed," she replied a little bitterly; "but you have no cause for such feelings. They seem to me unnatural, and the result of a morbid mind."

"Yes, you have thought me very ill balanced from the first; but I'm constrained to use such poor wits as I possess. In the abstract it strikes me as not irrational to recognize embodied truth and loveliness, and I do not think the less of myself because I reached such recognition in hours rather than in months. I saw your very self in this old garden, and every subsequent day has confirmed that impression. But there's no use in wasting words in explanation—I don't try to explain it to myself. But the fact is clear enough. By some necessity of my nature, it is just as it is. I can no more help it than I can help breathing. It was inevitable. My only chance was never meeting you, and yet I can scarcely wish that even now. Perhaps you think I've not tried, since I learned I ought to banish your image, but I have struggled as if I were engaged in a mortal combat, as you suggested. But it's of no use. I can't deceive you any more than I can myself. Now you know the whole truth, and it seems that there is no escaping it in our experience. I do not expect anything. I ask nothing save that you accept the happiness which is your perfect right; for not a shadow of blame rests on you. If you were not happy I should be only tenfold more wretched. But I've no right to speak to you in this way. I see I've caused you much pain; I've no right even to look at you feeling as I do. I would have gone before, were it not for hurting Mrs. Yocomb's feelings. I shall return to New York next Monday; for—"

"Return to New York!" she repeated, with a sudden and deep breath; and she became very pale. After a second she added hastily, "You are not strong enough yet; we are the ones to go."