“Tell me your grief, dear child. Have you not lived long enough to know that when the cause of your unhappiness is told to another, it weighs less heavily upon you? What, did you not confide in me on Saturday? 'Tis surely not from that man Bennet that——”
“Oh, no; he has naught to do with my trouble. It comes not from anyone but my own self—from my own foolishness. You have a mind to hear the story of a young girl's foolishness who knew not her own mind—her own heart?”
“If you are quite sure that you wish to tell it to me. You may be assured that you will find in me a sympathetic listener. Is there any one of us that can say in truth that his heart or hers has not some time been guilty of foolishness?”
“The worst of it is that what seems foolishness to-day had the semblance of wisdom yesterday. And who can say that to-morrow we may not go back to our former judgment?”
“That is the knowledge that has come to you from experience.”
“It has come to me as the conclusion of my story—such as it is.”
“'Tis sad to think that our best teacher must ever be experience, my child. But if you have learned your lesson you should be accounted fortunate. There are many to whom experience comes only to be neglected as a teacher.”
“I have had experience—a little—and all that it has taught to me is to doubt. A year ago I thought that I loved a man. To-day I do not know whether I love him or not—that is all my poor story, sir.” She had not spoken fluently, but faltering—with many pauses—a little wistfully, and with her eyes on the ground.
He stopped suddenly in his walk. He, too, had his eyes upon the ground. He had not at once appreciated the meaning of her words, but after a pause it came upon him: he understood what her words meant to him.
She loved another man.