“But, what is it, Auntie Sue?” he persisted.
“I think,” she answered,—“indeed I am quite sure,—that the greatest wrong is for a woman to kill a man's faith in woman; and for a man to kill a woman's faith in man.”
Brian Kent buried his face in his hands.
“Am I right, dear?” asked the old gentlewoman, after a little.
And Brian Kent answered: “Yes, Auntie Sue, you are right—that is the greatest wrong.”
Again they were silent. It was as though few words were needed between the woman of seventy years and this man who, out of some great trouble, had been so strangely brought to her by the river.
Then the silvery-haired old teacher spoke again: “Brian, have you ever wondered that I am so alone in the world? Have you ever asked yourself why I never married?”
“Yes, Auntie Sue,” he answered. “I have wondered.”
“Many people have,” she said, with simple frankness. Then—“I am going to tell you something, dear boy, that only two people in the world beside myself ever knew, and they are both dead, many years now. I am going to tell you, because I feel—because I think—that, perhaps, it may help you a little. I, too, Brian, had my dreams when I was a girl,—my dreams of happiness,—such as every true woman hopes for;—of a home with all that home means;—of a lover-husband;—of little ones who would call me 'mother';—and my dreams ended, Brian, on a battlefield of the Civil War. He went from me the very day we were promised. He never returned. I have always felt that we were as truly one as though the church had solemnized and the law had legalized our union. I promised that I would wait for him.”
“And you—you have kept that promise? You have been true to that memory?” Brian Kent asked, wonderingly.