This composed and womanly reply did not serve to quell the agitation in which Bayard had awaited it. He read and re-read, studied and scrutinized the few self-contained words with a sense of helplessness which equaled his misery. His position seemed to him intolerable. Something undignified about it cut the proud fellow to the quick. He had thought himself prepared for any natural phase in the lot which he had elected. In the old language which the devotees of ages have instinctively used, and which to each solitary heart seems a figure of speech as new as its own anguish, Bayard had believed himself able to “bear his cross.” He had now to learn that, in the curious, complex interplay of human life, a man may not be able even to wear his burden alone, and drop decently under it when the time comes. Suppose, as the cross-bearer crawls along in blood and dust, that the arm of the coarse wood strikes and bruises the delicate flesh of a woman’s shoulder?
Suppose—oh, suppose the unsupposable, the maddening!
Suppose she might have been led, taught by his great love to love him? What then?
Because a man had a duty to God, had he none to a woman?
After a night of sleepless misery, he wrote again:—
Is there no way in which I can see you—if only for a moment? Shall you be in Boston—if you are not coming to Windover—on your return home? This is more than I can bear.
Yours utterly,
E. B.
And Helen answered:—