"My dear, I am very glad you have told me," Joanna continued, as she softly stroked Isabel's hair; "it is an unspeakable joy to me to find that Paul never really fell below himself after all. But you mustn't tell any one else; it is now Paul's secret and not yours."
"Oh! I must; I must tell the whole world how good Paul has been, and how vilely and cruelly it has misjudged him."
"You must do nothing of the kind. If Paul has jeopardized his literary reputation to keep a secret, no one has a right to tell that secret without his permission. Don't you see how it is? He has thought nothing in the whole world of so much importance as the screening of you; therefore it would be cruel indeed of you to undo his life-work in a fit of hysterical conscientiousness."
"But it would serve me right for people to know how horrid and selfish and cowardly I have been," cried Isabel.
"Probably it would; but now I am considering what is due to Paul, and not what is due to you, my dear."
"Oh, Joanna, can you ever forgive me?"
"I am afraid I couldn't have done so when I was strong and well; but, as I told you, things are different with me now. Yes, I forgive you, Isabel; though I confess it isn't in me to forgive as Paul forgives, nor to love as Paul loves; but I cannot in the least understand how either of you did what you have done—you are both incomprehensible to me. Tell me how it happened."
"After I had quarrelled with Paul, I was in an awfully bitter mood, because I thought he was hard and cold and did not love me as I loved him. I was ashamed of caring for a man more than he cared for me, don't you see?"
"I am afraid I don't see, but never mind."
"Don't you see that if a man gives his love unrequited, he establishes at once a claim upon one woman's gratitude and all women's sympathy; while if a woman does the same thing, she is despised by one man and derided by the rest?"