"I never meant to."
"But you did. And it is for what we do that we are punished—not for what we meant to do. It is a way of yours to mix up essentials with non-essentials, and I expect always will be: I suppose you are made like that, and can't help it. But if you'd only realised that the important thing was not how Fay and Miss Kingsnorth got on together, but how Fay and you got on together, all this misery would never have happened."
I felt I could bear no more: so I went out alone into the autumn dusk to commune with my own soul on the revelations which Frank had vouchsafed to me. And when we met again, we did not refer to it, but talked only on indifferent things. For the boy not only knew when to speak: with a wisdom beyond his years he knew also when to be silent.
For several days I continued to commune with my own soul on the matters which Frank had revealed to me. And as I did so the conviction gradually took hold of me that I had been right in my ruthless decision that as long as I lived I could never forgive the man who had come between my wife and me: who had left my house unto me desolate, and had driven forth my darling to her death.
And then wherever I went I heard nothing but one awful message: the dying leaves whispered it, the dropping rain repeated it, and the autumn winds thundered it in my ears: the message which long ago struck terror and remorse to the heart of a great King struck terror and remorse also to mine. Wherever I went and whatever I did I kept hearing the appalling word of condemnation: "Thou art the man."
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PEACE OF GOD
I awoke one morning with a strange feeling that something wonderful had happened during the night: and as my mind gradually cleared, I realised what that something was.
I had forgiven Frank Wildacre.
Or, rather, I had come to the knowledge that there was nothing to forgive: that the man whose insensate folly had spoilt my life and Fay's was not Frank at all, but myself.