His sister groaned her exasperation. "You had all the chance till this Ware turned up. Of course when a woman's got a choice it makes a difference. But there's nothing gained by holding off and letting him have everything his own way. If you don't ask her, of course she'll take him, provided she gets the chance. And if you do ask her, she may take you. So you won't lose anything by trying."
As a result of this plain unflattering counsel, Thomas Hardin dressed that evening with unusual care, and with the approach of darkness turned his face toward his familiar goal, his emotions befitting a participant in the charge of the Light Brigade. His throat was parched, his heart hammered. While absolutely certain that Persis was aware of his aspiration, the thought of expressing it, of making a formal offer, was distinctly terrifying. And moreover there was a disagreeable preliminary that must receive attention, the confession of another of those misdemeanors of his past, as irrepressible a brood as hounded poor Macbeth. The episode dated back to his twentieth year, when Annabel Sinclair was just waking up to the knowledge of her beauty and the power it gave her over the susceptible sex. Thomas blushed to recall how ignominiously he himself had capitulated.
Fate was on his side that evening. Joel was absent. Persis was kind. She sat by the lamp stitching, and the inevitable suggestion of comfortable domesticity was in itself an inspiration. He thanked Heaven for her lowered gaze, confident that if he were forced to meet her candid eyes, he should never find courage to begin.
"Persis, there's something I want to tell you. It ain't pleasant to speak about it, but I think it's one of the things that ought to be said before—I mean I'd be a good deal easier in my mind if you knew all about it."
"I don't believe it's anything so very bad, Thomas," Persis said with unaccustomed gentleness.
"Well, I don't know. She was so pretty and cute that it sort of went to my head, but that's no excuse."
"Who was pretty?"
Persis let her work fall. Her eyes met her lover's with a challenge that did not tend to lessen Thomas's confusion.
"Well, Persis, you've a right to know. Of course I wouldn't mention it to anybody else. Not that she was a mite to blame," interpolated Thomas with instinctive chivalry, "for it was all my fault from start to finish. It—it was Stanley Sinclair's wife."
Absorbed as he was in relieving his conscience of its intolerable load, it did not occur to Thomas to emphasize the fact that on the occasion when he had played so culpable a part, Annabel still bore her maiden name. It was a good two years before the dignified Stanley Sinclair had recognized in the giddy, shallow, little beauty, the fitting mate for his staid maturity. And that his failure to make this point clear might lead to a serious misapprehension on Persis' part, failed to present itself as a possibility to the honest blunderer.