For a time he stared at that vision—reproached and stunned....
Something that had darkened his thoughts was dispelled. His mind was illuminated by understanding. He saw Dolly again very clearly as she had talked to him in the garden. It was as if he had never seen her before. For the first time he realized her indecision. He understood now why it was she had snatched herself back from him and taken what she knew would be an irrevocable step, and he knew now that it was his own jealous pride that had made that step irrevocable. The Dolly who had told him of that decision next morning was a Dolly already half penitent and altogether dismayed. And if indeed he had loved her better than his pride, even then he might have held on still and won her. He remembered how she had winced when she made her hinting confession to him. No proud, cold-hearted woman had she been when she had whispered, “Oswald, now you must certainly go.”
It was as plain as daylight, and never before had he seen it plain.
He had left her, weak thing that she was, because she was weak, for this fellow to waste and drown. And it was over now and irrevocable.
“Men and women, poor fools together,” he said. “Poor fools. Poor fools,” and then at the thought of Dolly, broken and shrinking, ashamed of the thing she had done, at the thought of the insults he had slashed at her, knowing how much she was ashamed and thinking nevertheless only of his own indignity, and at the thought of how all this was now stilled forever in death, an overwhelming sense of the pitifulness of human pride and hatred, passion and desire came upon him. How we hated! how we hurt one another! and how fate mocked all our spites and hopes! God sold us a bargain in life. Dolly was sold. Arthur the golden-crested victor was sold. He himself was sold. The story had ended in this pitiless smacking of every one of the three poor tiresome bits of self-assertion who had acted in it. It was a joke, really, just a joke. He began to laugh as a dog barks, and then burst into bitter weeping....
He wept noisily for a time. He blubbered with his elbows on the table.
His Swahili attendant watched him with an undiminished respect, for Africa weeps and laughs freely and knows well that great chiefs also may weep.
Presently his tears gave out; he became very still and controlled, feeling as if in all his life he would never weep again.
He took up Mr. Sycamore’s letter and went on reading it.
“In all other respects the wills are in identical terms,” the letter ran. “In both I am appointed sole executor, a confidence I appreciate as a tribute to my lifelong friendship with Mr. Stubland and his parents. The other guardians are Miss Phyllis and Miss Phœbe Stubland and your aunt-in-law, Lady Charlotte Sydenham.”