And the fire burnt itself out, and the lamp burnt itself out, but still she lay there in her tears.
CHAPTER L.—ON CONSOLATION AS A FINE ART.
HIS worst forebodings had come to pass. That was the one feeling which Harold had on leaving her.
He had scarcely ventured to entertain a hope that the result of his interview with her and of his confession to her would be different.
He knew her.
That was why he had gone to her without hope. He knew that her nature was such as made it impossible for her to understand how he could have practised a fraud upon her; and he knew that understanding is the first step toward forgiving.
Still, there ever pervades the masculine mind an idea that there is no limit to a woman’s forgiveness.
The masculine mind has the best of reasons for holding fast to this idea. It is the result of many centuries of experience of woman—of many centuries of testing the limits of woman’s forgiveness. The belief that there is nothing that a woman will not forgive in a man whom she loves, is the heritage of man—just as the heritage of woman is to believe that nothing that is done by a man whom she loves, stands in need of forgiveness.