“Nothing. I was turning over an old Bradshaw, and details of the journey caught my eye. Next morning I left Norwich. I was abroad two years.”
“In France all the time?”
“No. France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy. Perhaps I saw the countries all the better for the necessity I was under of travelling very cheaply—so cheaply, indeed, I wonder how I did it. I walked oftener than rode, and dispensed with hotel dinners whenever possible. I have a diary of the two years’ travel.”
“You will let me read that?” Isabel asked quietly.
He hesitated; his eyes fixed absently on the windows.
“Yes, I will let you read it. It is foolish, boyish; I dare not read it myself.”
“For what reason?”
“Because there is nothing I hold more in horror than the ghost of my former self. I deny identity,” he added with sudden bitterness. “How can one be held responsible for the thoughts and acts of the being who bore his name years ago? The past is no part of our existing self; we are free of it, it is buried. That release is the pay Time owes us for doing his work.”
Isabel regarded him earnestly; her cheek gathered a warmer hue for a moment.
“You may read it if you care to,” he resumed, falling back to calmness. “There is no one else to whom I would show it.”