"I think," she said, "that it was long before I knew. If I had not been so young and so thoughtless I think I should have known that I began to care for him before he went away the first time. But I was very young, and he was so quiet. There was one day, when he brought me some heliotrope, when I wondered why I liked the quiet things he said; and after he went away I used to wonder, in a sort of fitful way, what he was doing. And the first time I found myself face to face with a trouble I thought of him, and wished for him, without knowing why. I even began a letter to him; but I was too timid to send it."
"Oh, if you had sent it!" Agnes exclaimed, involuntarily.
"Yes—if I had sent it! But I did not. Perhaps it would not have made much difference if I had, only when I told him of it"—
"You told him of it?" said Agnes.
"Yes—in Virginia. All the wrong I have done, all the indulgence I have allowed myself, is the wrong I did and the indulgence I allowed myself in Virginia. There were days in Virginia when I suppose I was bad enough"—
"Tell me that afterward," said Agnes. "I want to know how you reached it."
"I reached it," answered Bertha, "in this way: the thing that was my first trouble grew until it was too strong for me—or I was too weak for it. It was my own fault. Perhaps I ought to have known, but I did not. I don't think that I have let any one but myself suffer for my mistake. I couldn't do that. When I found out what a mistake it was, I told myself that it was mine, and that I must abide by it. And in time I thought I had grown quite hard, and I amused myself, and said that nothing mattered; and I did not believe in emotion, and thought I enjoyed living on the surface. I disliked to hear stories of any strong feeling. I tried to avoid reading them, and I was always glad when I heard clever worldly speeches made. I liked Laurence first, because he said such clever, cold-blooded things. He was at his worst when I first knew him. He had lost all his money, and some one had been false to him, and he believed nothing."
"I did not know," said Agnes, "that he had a story." And then she added, a trifle hurriedly, "But it does not matter."
"It mattered to him," said Bertha. "And we all have a story—even poor Larry—and even I—even I!"
Then she went on again.