Denham stood still and faced his sister very gravely, "I was growing to care for her, Soeur Angélique," he said. "I believe I would have loved her if,—if Gerald Vernor had not come here when she did."
"Oh, Denham!"
"Yes, Soeur Angélique. It is a humiliating confession, is it not, that one has wilfully thrown away something that perhaps one might have had, for something that one knows one can never have? It is sheerest folly. And to do it with one's eyes open is the maddest folly of all. Gerald Vernor is as indifferent to me as it is possible for one human creature to be to another. I hold no more place in her thoughts than had I never existed. And yet, Soeur Angélique, I am fool enough,—or helpless enough,—whichever you please, to love her. I love her not for what she is to me, but for what she is in herself, for what she really is, rather than for what she seems,—for the strength and the heroism of her heart, which I see through all the glaring, commonplace faults, which she is at no pains to hide. Or perhaps I only love her because it was meant that I should. Be it as it may, I do love her, and as passionately, as entirely, and as hopelessly as it is possible for man to love."
"O Denham, Denham, my boy!"
Denham laid his hand lightly on his sister's lips. "Now we have had a sufficiency of heroics for once, indeed for always," he said, with a wholly altered voice. "Life has enough of solemnity in it and in spare, without our adding aught to it. We will not speak of this again, if you please. Folly is always best forgotten. But Soeur Angélique, if you imagine me to be a blighted being, if you think I walk the floor in the dead of night, tearing my hair and calling on all the stars to witness the unearthly gloom in my racked bosom, you are utterly mistaken. I do nothing of the kind. I am not blighted at all. My damask cheek is not going to be preyed upon, nor shall I take to an excess of tobacco and poetry. I have made a mistake, but I mean to sing over it,—not weep over it,—and to become a stronger and better man, if possible, for having been so weak a one."
"And Phebe?" said Soeur Angélique. Great tears stood in her eyes.
"I hoped—"
Denham placed both hands on his sister's shoulders. "Soeur Angélique, you must bury those hopes in the grave. Loving Gerald Vernor, never, now, or in the future, shall I have one word of love for any other woman. But for her, I should have come perhaps to love Phebe with this same love; perhaps,—who knows?—Phebe might so have loved me. As it is—Soeur Angélique you know what I am. You know if I am likely to deceive myself. Gerald Vernor has changed my life for always. What might have been, now can never be."
He stood still a moment, looking full at her. It was wonderful how resolute and firm and yet brave and gentle too those merry brown eyes of his could become. Soeur Angélique sighed and shook her head softly. He stooped and kissed her, then turned away saying: "Now that chapter has been read through to the end. Woe be to him who turns back the page! And it is time I went to call on poor Widow Brown."
Soeur Angélique stood in the window as a moment later he passed by. He kissed his hand to her with a gay smile and went on. But she still stood there with the tears welling and welling in her eyes till they fell gently over upon her cheeks. She did not heed them, she was so busy with her thoughts. "Poor Phebe," she said softly to herself. "My poor little Phebe! But perhaps,—with time—"