“I could tell you—if you would let me—”
“Do not tell me,” he interrupted. “I repeat that I do not wish to know. The one thing that I have seen is bad enough. Let that be all. Do you not see that? Besides, I am myself the cause of it in a measure—unwilling enough, Heaven knows!”
“The only cause,” said Unorna bitterly.
“Then I am in some way responsible. I am not quite without blame—we men never are in such cases. If I reproach you, I must reproach myself as well—”
“Reproach yourself!—ah no! What can you say against yourself?” she could not keep the love out of her voice, if she would; her bitterness had been for herself.
“I will not go into that,” he answered. “I am to blame in one way or another. Let us say no more about it. Will you let the matter rest?”
“And let bygones be bygones, and be friends to each other, as we were this morning?” she asked, with a ray of hope.
The Wanderer was silent for a few seconds. His difficulties were increasing. A while ago he had told her, as an excuse for herself, that men and women did not always mean exactly what they said, and even now he did not set himself up in his own mind as an exception to the rule. Very honourable and truthful men do not act upon any set of principles in regard to truth and honour. Their instinctively brave actions and naturally noble truthfulness make those principles which are held up to the unworthy for imitation, by those whose business is the teaching of what is good. The Wanderer’s only hesitation lay between answering the question or not answering it.
“Shall we be friends again?” Unorna asked a second time, in a low tone. “Shall we go back to the beginning?”
“I do not see how that is possible,” he answered slowly.